- Year
- 1932
- Country
- USA
- Runtime
- 67 min
- Director
- Victor Halperin
- Updated
- 9 Aug 2026
- Obscurity
- known (18/100)
White Zombie
Lugosi, Haitian folklore, and the first zombie film. No eating involved.
The first zombie film, and a strange piece of early-30s horror. Bela Lugosi plays a Haitian mill owner who commands a workforce of the living dead and agrees to turn a young bride into one of them. There is no eating; the horror is enslavement and the loss of the self, drawn from Haitian folklore.
Made independently on Universal's leftover sets, it is dreamlike, static and eerie in a way the sound era had not figured out yet. Lugosi's eyes do most of the work.
The origin of the whole genre, and closer to its folkloric roots than anything since.
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