· Steinblatt, J. (2011). The Evolution of the Zombie in Film. Macaulay Honors College Academic Journal, 1(1), pg. 45. Retrieved from http://macaulay.cuny.edu/journals/index.php/academic-journal/article/view/2
“Murder Legendre, creates the zombies in a similar fashion to the witch doctors of Haiti. He poisons his victim, steals their body, and uses voodoo sorcery to reanimate them into zombies under his exclusive control. Legendre mentions that he keeps the zombies' souls…”
This is talking about White Zombie, which is regarded as the first zombie movie in American history. Therefore, it speaks to the origins of the zombie in film, as we know it today. However, it also shows the huge disparity between the White Zombie slave women zombies and the modern zombies we think about today, of the 28 Days Later or Dawn of the Dead era.
“The true villain in White Zombie is Bela Lugosi's mad bokor Murder Legendre, not the pitiful zombies themselves.”
This sources helps show the shift in emotional reaction to watching a zombie film. In comparison to White Zombie, the empathy the viewer experiences is completely different than modern movies. While now we root for the humans for go around murdering these zombies, in the past, the zombies are the actual victims and the viewer often feels sympathy for them instead.
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