Friday, April 12, 2013

WHITE ZOMBIE (1932) and Good Bye MOZ



With Brother D’s recent sad announcement that his influential, long lasting podcast Mail Order Zombie would be signing off for the final time very soon I got to thinking about zombie films in general. I certainly could never sit through the 200 plus examples of the genre that Derek has subjected himself to over the last five years but I have seen my fair share.

Although I do prefer the Romero style creatures I also have a lot of respect for the older, Haitian Voodoo type too and its been interesting lately to have two non-zombie podcasts cover the grand-daddy of that kind of shambler-  WHITE ZOMBIE (1932).  Brother D participated in a thorough review of the film over on the excellent B-Movie Cast adding his insight and knowledge to the regular show hosts’ wry enthusiasm. And then just a couple of weeks later, in a nod to the news of the end of MOZ the fine fellows over at Outside the Cinema stretched out of their comfort zone to cover the film as well. Both shows offer great discussion of this classic, if creaky, piece of horror history with much attention paid to Bela Lugosi’s arresting performance. If you aren’t already a listener to these two fine shows allow me to recommend both to you. They are great weekly podcasts that manage to both inform and entertain in very different ways. This neat bit of synchronicity around WHITE ZOMBIE provides a good entry point for new listeners and can give you a multi-faceted view of how impressive the variety of views can be in the pod-o-sphere.


It’s just a shame that it was the news of the passing of Mail Order Zombie that gives us this great opportunity. Good- bye MOZ. You will be missed.



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