The White Zombie (1932) is a brilliant piece of the zombie genre. Robin suggested me this film and I should have watched this sooner. The use of cinematography and sound design are interesting despite its age. White Zombie were able to utilize the art of suggestion which many modern horror films lack.

The opening scene is a wide, non-descript shot of a local ceremony. This shot is literally stamping the western audiences on to an unknown ritual. It is impossible to see clear any specific face or object due to the blurry nature of the shot and the title words addressing the fear of an anonymous collective fear.

After a brief establishing shot of an approaching of a horse carriage, the scene cuts to a close-up shot of the two white characters. The initial close up of these two protagonists emphasizes the audience’s identity as they drive through the voodoo ritual. The wide shot of a unidentified Haitian natives, the very first characters we see, is replaced by the close-up shot of the white Westerners. The narrative has shifted from the native perspective to the “colonizer’s perspective” (Shohat & Stam, 1994).

The introductory sequence of the sugarcane mill begins with a wide shot overlooking the sugar processing. We can only see silhouettes of workers who slowly carry baskets of cane to the thresher and push the millstone in order. The machines are operated entirely by unidentified manpower although there is electric lighting in the mill. There is no grinding sound of metal gears or chatting between the workers, only the creaking wood. The sound effects emphasize the low-tech of the factory. It might not be scary for the modern generation of audiences, but I bet people in that era would have a nightmare after leaving the cinema. In my opinion, the whole sequence was dominated by sound.

Going back to the money shot which is my most satisfying shot (I suppose) in my area. This is a different way of scaring people compared to White Zombie. The experimental combination of the black screen and the subtle horror sound worked quite well. The short sequence would scare viewers in a different way. It slowly built the tension of audiences, then suddenly slap them in the face.This trick is normally used  in jump scare scenes in horror genre. With a small dose, the trick would make a huge impact on the film. If we overused it, audiences will get tired quickly. As a result, they will forget almost everything about the film after the screening.

Reference:

• Shohat, E & Stam, R 1994, Unthinking Eurocentrism, NewYork: Routledge.