Trailer Trash Thursday!

Here at the Zombie News Desk, we aim not only to provide you zombie-fiends with the latest undead news straight from the coffin, but also celebrate the zombie genre from it's roots to today. So every Thursday I'll be posting a new trailer for a zombie film. From the old to the new, the popular to the unknown, the underrated, the unloved and the unforgettable. We'll have it all!

What better place to start than with White Zombie (1932). Directed by Victor Halperin (who also directed Revolt Of The Zombies in 1936) and starring one of horror cinemas greatest, Bela Lugosi who was desperate for a good part at this time of his career, White Zombie is often given the title of 'the first zombie film ever made.' Whilst this is debatable (take for example Robert Wiene's The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari), there's no denying White Zombie's influence and importance in the cinematic zombie genre. Based upon a flop theatre show Zombie (created by Kenneth Webb, 1932) which itself was based upon the true adventures of William Seabrook (as seen in  his The Magic Island book), White Zombie earned a phenomenal and unexpected profit (roughly $8 Million). Since the film was based upon Seabrook's book, which was apparently true, film studios could produce as many zombie films as they wished without the fear of copyright problems.  So, what followed was a series of cash-ins and rip-offs of this runaway success, each exploiting the Haitian/voodoo zombie.

Without this landmark film, zombies may never have existed in cinema.