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White Zombie

SCREENING, SCREENING + INTRO

White Zombie

Friday, Aug 19 at 7:30 pm

Location: Bartos Screening Room

8/19: With intro by guest curator Kelli Weston

Dir. Victor Halperin. 1932, 70 mins. Archival 35mm. With Bela Lugosi, Madge Bellamy, Joseph Cawthorn, Robert W. Frazer, John Harron. Directly inspired by William Seabrook’s book The Magic Island, White Zombie is considered the first feature-length zombie film. A wealthy plantation owner (Frazer) enlists the help of voodoo master Murder Legendre (Lugosi) to kidnap Madeleine Short (Bellamy), who recently arrived in Haiti to wed her banker fiancé (Harron). The Creole-coded Legendre runs a mill operated by zombies and, using a mysterious potion, he transforms Madeleine into one of these creatures. This formula—the rescue of white women from the symbolic, sometimes literal threat of miscegenation on “exotic” foreign terrain—would influence many early zombie films to follow.

Tickets: $15 / $11 senior and students / $9 youth (ages 3–17) / Free or discounted for MoMI members ($11). Order tickets. Please pick up tickets at the Museum’s admissions desk upon arrival. All seating is general admission. Review safety protocols before your visit.

Ticketholders may add on a visit to the Living with the Walking Dead exhibition for $10.

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