White Privilege Zombie

Madeleine and Neil are in love and want to get married at a Haitian plantation. Sounds romantic. And hey, Monsieur Beaumont owns a Haitian plantation; why not go to Haiti and get hitched in the middle of the night while zombies roam and voodoo drum solos echo across the countryside?

But that sly ’ol dog Beaumont has a hidden agenda. His flimsy plan is to get Madeline there and somehow try to convince her to dump Neil and let him feel her up, through sickness and in health. He explains this while walking her down the aisle. Nice timing, dude.

But Beaumont didn’t get that nice suit by taking the long way around success. He contacts his neighbor Legendre, an evil man whose very glare will make you poop in your pants. And he knows how to turn you into a zombie (which accounts for all those minimum wage workers in his castle and mill). He wants Legendre to use his black mojo to make Madeline hook up with him. Legendre gives the emotionally f’d up Beaumont some zombie dust.

One minute after being pronounced Mrs. Neil Something, she smells her wedding bouquet and, wham, deader than a door nail. Neil freaks. Beaumont takes the body away and sure enough, it comes back to life. But not life as he thought. Madeline is as emotionless as a married couple, and hardly even blinks. Beaumont goes back to Legendre and wants a refund. Slight problem — once a zombie, always a zombie. 

Meanwhile, Neil and a priest friend try and find his corpse bride. Well, heck — she’s wandering around Legendre’s beach front castle (complete with zombie maids and stunning ocean views from every room except the dungeon). Neil finds Madeline, but she gives him the cold shoulder. (Neil didn’t know she was a zombie. Heck, he thought she was dead.) 

A small scuffle ensues with Legendre ultimately being thrown off one of his many scenic balconies onto the beach rocks below. It’s only after Legendre dies that the zombie spell is broken. Neil’s future is now full of smooches and feeling ups.

White Zombie (1932) has an interesting premise and is full of Bela Lugosi eyebrow close-ups, which look like sweater sleeves taped to his forehead. But shabby pacing, no real scares, and several glasses of spilled wine slow this thing down to a zombie crawl. (I don’t drink wine, but I hate to see ANY alcohol go to waste.)

There Is Only One Vampire

While there was a diaper-smudging scary vampire movie that came 15 years prior (Les Vampires/1915), Dracula, made in 1931, is the gold bar standard for ALL vampire movies since. And they did it without blood, fangs, a movie soundtrack or the Internet. All it took was an awesome story, spooky ass atmosphere, a few rubber bats, and Bela Lugosi’s famous arching eyebrows, which McDonald’s ultimately stole for their logo. True that.

Renfield works as a leasor for Count Dracula, and travels overseas with some papers for Carfax Abbey, his new rental digs in bloody, bustling London. Once in town, Drac steps out for a bite, then off to a symphony (regarded as a metal concert back in those days.)

Dracula needs Renfield to do minion bidding for him, so he unleashes the now-famous Drac stare-down, the evil equivalent of a Clint Eastwood cowboy squint. (Squint Eastwood. Heh.) This turns Renfield into a minimum wage employee who eats company bugs.

And here’s where a second star is born. Renfield’s maniacal stare and ultra-creepy smirking laugh STILL freaks one out to this day. No one since has managed to goon people out the way he did. You should know the rest of the story from here.

Dracula sucks on Mina, the movie’s hot chick, although Drac’s three vamp brides back at the castle are creatures with some nice features. Now Mina has permanent crampy “woman” problems.

Van Helsing, a guy holding a doctorate in doctoring, discovers Dracula’s vampire tendencies, and along with Mina’s boyfriend Johnathan Harker (cool name, even cooler suit) track Drac back to the coffin and…chop, chop, fizz, fizz.

Curiously, this classic ended abruptly, with Van Helsing serving up Dracula a nice stake dinner, while Johnathan and Mina walk slowly up the stairs in grief relief. Van Helsing opts to stick (sorry) around. (I bet you anything he was gonna steal Dracula’s wallet.)

To revisit the legacy of the modern day (OK, that sounds odd) vampire is pretty dang cool. So, like, I command thee to watch it.