Turns out, the horror classic "White Zombie" beat "Night of the Living Dead" to the undead punch when it was released in 1932 (via NPR). Most notably, "White Zombie" was the very first film to actually use the "Z" word. If you're unfamiliar with the film, it finds a rarely creepier Bela Lugosi portraying a white voodoo master named Murder Legendre who operates his Haitian sugar cane mill with the hypnotized help of an undead army of zombies.
Early in the narrative, Legendre's supernatural abilities are enlisted by a wealthy plantation owner (Robert W. Frazer) who has eyes for the fiancée (Madge Bellamy) of a new arrival to town (John Harron). The catch is the woman will have to die and be brought back to life for Legendre's brand of mind-control to work. And once that tragic twist of fate is agreed to, well, "White Zombie" gets weird in ways audiences likely were not prepared for in 1932. As such, the film was viewed mostly as a failure upon release, though modern critics continue to revere the film for its groundbreaking style and narrative ingenuity, per Rotten Tomatoes.
As we already noted, "White Zombie" really isn't a zombie flick like we've come to know them. Sure, "White Zombie" has impacted culture in more than one way. It is, after all the film that ultimately inspired the name of Rob Zombie's legendary '90s metal outfit (via Loudwire). But, as brilliant as this 1932 marvel is, the mindless, meandering, flesh-hungry beasts George A. Romero delivered in "Night of the Living Dead" are far scarier. To this day, it's this 1968 movie which is set the stage for more great zombie movies.
