Review by Gary Tooze

Production:

Disc:

Video:

Audio:

English, none

• Bela Lugosi Interview (6:41)

• Theatrical trailer (2:47)

• 16-image Gallery

Bitrate:

Kino 'cleaned'

 

Kino Raw:

Description: Along a desolate road in the Haitian mountains, a carriage bearing Neil Parker and Madeleine Short encounters a funeral in which the body is being buried in the road. Further down the road, the coach stops at the sight of a man of satanic appearance: six human shapes step forth, and the horrified driver shouts ''Zombies!'', signaling the first appearance of the living dead in American cinema. When first released, WHITE ZOMBIE occupies a deserved place beside DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN as one of the most eerie and interesting horror films of the 1930's and remains a horror classic. Remastered in HD for the first time from Kino Classics!

***

In this haunting low-budgeter, Bela Lugosi stars as Murder Legendre, a shadowy character who exercises supernatural powers over the natives in his Haitian domain. Coveting Madge Bellamy as his bride, wealthy Robert Frazier enters into an unholy agreement with Lugosi, whereby Madge will die, then be resurrected as a zombie.

 

 

The Film:

Excerpt from TimeOut located HERE

Image :    NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

White Zombie on Blu-ray from Kino has given us something to talk about.  I'll tell you - if not for the inclusion of the 'Raw' un-digitized version - I'd be screaming Blu(ray)-murder at this transfer. The 'main feature' has contrast boosting and DNR out the wazoo - it reminds me of those early HD Cinema Classics renderings like 'The Red House'. It just sucks the grain right out of the image and makes everything look waxy with unnatural, blown-out, whites (reminiscent of some of those late 1990's Mei Ah DVDs). BUT... the good news is that they have included what they call a 'Raw' version - an alternate version of the film transferred without digital enhancement. It actually has a higher bitrate and more information in the frame! Yes, it also has plenty of speckles and dirt but looks far better to my eye with some healthy texture. To be fair to the 'digitized version' - it does seem most prominent at the beginning but once you see that waxy look - it is hard to view the bastardized/manipulated version in the same light, IMO.

Staement From VCI: "Well folks, there ain’t no beatin’ around the bush, we actually did goof this one up! The BD of White Zombie was in fact encoded at a bit rate under 10Mbs, as reported by DVD Beaver, and as most of those “in the know” know, the normal bit rate should have been north of 30Mbs. Believe me, we didn’t do this intentionally. Frankly there is no logical reason, or even a monetary incentive, to skimp on the bit rate. We just goofed up! Thanks to Ben Gart for bringing the DVD Beaver report to our attention. Certainly points up a gap in our QC process, which we will be working to correct. So, what is VCI going to do about it!!!! We have already corrected our Blu-ray master, and we are proud to say it was encoded at a 35Mbs rate. New product will be replicated ASAP. We have already notified our distribution partners to stop all further sales/shipments, and to purge their current inventory of all skimpy encoded discs. We will also make a direct replacement, at no cost, to anyone who purchased/received a skimpy encoded Blu-ray. Consumers should call our customer service department at 800-331-4077, between 9:00 am and 5:00 pm CDT, to order a replacement disc. I keep referring to these as “skimpy encoded discs,” because even though the encoded bit rate should have been higher, the overall quality of our restoration was still able to shine through, earning us several very favorable reviews. I can’t promise we won’t goof up some other DVD or BD project in the future, but I can promise we will fess up and then fix up, our goofs, the best we can. Bob Blair, president of VCI."

CLICK EACH BLU-RAY CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION

 

Subtitle Sample - VCI - Blu-ray