The Waterbury Democrat., 1932-08-20
ZOfnbies Make
 Picture Thriller
Palace Books "White Zombie" With Bella
 LugOrit

Not one person in 100000 in the United States has ever heard, of a zombie. Yet down in Haiti this ,fearsome object is as real, and as much a part Of the national super stition as voodoo, itself.
 Ask native Haitian the mean ing of zombie. If you are a blanc, or white man, he will look at you in pity, cross himself, if he happens to be Catholic, and pass on about his business with no explanation.
 Or, otherwise, he might explain that zom biism Is part of the native voodoo practiced by limited and feared group known as 'le culte des mortes," or users of corpses for magical purposes.
 Within the present year, Victor Halperin, noted motion picture di- rector, and his brother er-producer, Edward Halperin, made 8 photo- play called White Zombie," writ ten around the little known voodoo practice of zombiism. He deter mined to find out at the source what it was all about, and went to Haiti to investigate the subject. ~ Mir Halperin returned from his trip a wiser and more serious man. What he learned about the black magic of Haiti concerns facts and fancies beyond the widest visions of 8 maddened brain. But he got what he went after, and much of it he put into a screen play that makes "Dracula" and "Franken- stein'' look like Mack Sennett com- edies in comparison.
 The director got right down to the heart of his subject. Not only did he gain the confidence of the Haitian blacks, but he went into the dense jungled interior, right into the heart of voodooism; into their villages and homes. He be- came acquainted with their papa lois and mamalois, head men and women; he got to know their hou- gahs, or high priests; saw. their Damballa ritual dances and dance Congo; heard the Rada- drums beating in the night, and finally was taken into the holy of holies, the houmfort, or mystery house, the very inner sanctum of voodoo practice.
 -~1L Wdb III tnS uh6lC"ldAu he heard tales of the zombie that puts into the shade all of the hor- TOT stories ever written in books, presented on the stage or flashed on the screen. In plain English, he learned that the horrible zom- bic comes from the grave, yet is neither a ghost nor person who has been raised from the dead. In short, the zombie is a soulless, hu- man corpse. still dead. but taken from the grave, and endowed by sorcery with a mechanical semb- lance of life. It is dead body which is made to walk and move and act as if it were alive.
 People who have the power to do this, he was told,< go to fresh grave, dig up the body before dis- integration sets in, galvanize it into action through magic and then make it & servant. Occasionally it Is used for the commission of crime, as in the story of White Zombie" which comes to the Poli Palace theater on Sunday, but more often simply as drudge around the house or farm or in the cane fields. It is set at dull, heavy tasks, and beaten like a dumb beast if it falters.
 As explained in White Zombie", so fearful are the natives of Haiti that le cutie des mortes will get them after they die and make d zombie of them, that they very often bury their dead beneath solid tombs of masonry; also in roads over which wagons are constantly passing, and in yards near tho doorsteps where they can watch the graves and protect the depart ed.
 Instances have been known