"I see...I see...I see death..."

For being recognized as the first zombie movie done in the early 1930's, I think it does a pretty good job, that is for not having some really awesome crazy flesh eating zombies running around. Personally if I had watched this film for my own pleasure I would not have dug deep enough to recognize the idea of U.S. imperialism throughout. It's interesting to see this film portray women as a very sensitive, helpless creature and a white man(Legendre) living in a grand castle controlling everyone, dead or alive.

Something from the reading that really struck me was the Haitian history. It talks about how Haitians experienced several problems, one being of color and class. Haitians ended up being divided into two main groups, the "well-educated" mulattos and the "impoverished blacks." This is still going on. It just reminded of me of when I was in Haiti I met a girl whose family was considered to be upper class/mulatto or, bourgeoisie, her younger brother was kidnapped by a group of lower class Haitians, they didn't hurt him or anything, they just held him for ransom and yes, got him back in the end. It's just crazy to think about how much that sort of thing really happened, and still to this day happens there. The idea of "Black zombie slavery" in the film probably wouldn't have caught my attention to the idea of the forced labor system the U.S. forced on the Haitian people.

The cinematography was sometimes hilarious. Fading in and out in strange cartoon-ish ways. The EYES of Legendre fading in and out randomly was kind of goofy especially during the part where Madeline looks in her glass at dinner. Overall the film did a pretty good job at making you feel you were in a nightmare of some twisted kind...sure, we weren't shaking in our boots but because we've watched numerous horror films that deal with much worse than this we're not affected by it. I thought it was neat to see the film based in Haiti. Some of the silly strange noises reminded me of when I was there. Haiti at night is sort of like a strange dream/nightmare, sometimes in the day time too. There's is no electricity there unless you steal it or have a generator, and so out in the middle of nowhere it really feels eerie, stray dogs following you around howling at everything, pigs rummaging around, chickens, you even get people following you around so it kinda adds to the whole nightmare thing.




Here are some pictures I took of parts of an old mango plantation that is interesting to walk through because its not everyday that people up here get to walk through old over grown plantations and it kinda goes along with the sense of a dream or a nightmare seeing strange building with overgrowth...Going back to the film I feel that lighting was portrayed very well throughout the film again, going along with the nightmare idea. Would the film be more successful if it had been done in color? I don't know...something that also kinda sat in the back of my mind...what if this movie was done into a remake?? I guess I will leave that question open to anyone... After thinking about it I think the most disturbing part of the film was the idea that Beaumont wants Madeline in the worst way, that he'll even take her when she's a lifeless zombie. Kind of disturbing...I really enjoyed this film..that damn vulture was wayyy unecessary but I guess it kind of added to the whole low budget 1930/horror thing.