Watch White Zombie, a film from 1932 during US Occupation of Haiti (check here for a version with superior sound). Although it is a horror film, it is not frightening in the least. It seems to draw from Seabrook's book and the presence of Haiti in the US cultural imagination during the military Occupation, whcih means it's full of condescending, racist, and inaccurate observations. For obvious reasons, the main characters are all white, the "natives" and "Voodoo" are insultingly portrayed, and last, but certainly not least, the film chooses to omit the presence of US Marines in Haiti.
This film reminds me of tales my Haitian grandmother shared about white people from the US or elsewhere coming to Haiti long ago. In those stories told to me as a child, white people come to Haiti as missionaries or seeking "occult" knowledge, and ended up seeing supernatural things, usually along the lines of this film. My grandmother told me those stories with a sense of humor, which, perhaps, might be necessary when viewing this film. Nonetheless, it bears the distinction of being the first zombie film in a genre that would follow the same rubic for decades to come, even if Haiti and "Voodoo" were eventually forgotten in most zombie films.
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