Truly Dreadful Film

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I often wonder what war-time audiences of the forties thought after leaving "...Zombie". Who could have been prepared for what lay behind the penny-dreadful title, surely one of the most poetic renderings of horror in genre history. Books have been written about its creator Val Lewton, and deservedly so. But what's on screen is traceable to the unerring pictorialism of director Jacques Tourneur, and his mastery of the fluid camera. Forget the plot and dialogue, too much of which is half-baked philosophizing, and the performances which, excepting Sir Lancelot's lovely sing-song, are largely secondary. Focus instead on the lyrical scenes that unfold like a shadowy dream as the camera pulls back to reveal the poetic beauty of atmosphere. This is the perfect antidote for viewers max'ed out on the over-FXed, overly literal staple of today. "Zombie" shows that Tourneur grasped what Lewton and Hitchcock already knew - that the greatest fright repository is your own imagination.

"Jane Eyre" transferred to the West Indies with Voodoo, Witchcraft and the occasional Zombie thrown in. Jacques Tourneur's "I Walked with a Zombie" is considered one of the most poetic of all horror films and it's certainly that; it's a film full or beauty, (gorgeously shot in black and white by J. Roy Hunt), with its frights mostly understated. Like "Jane Eyre" it's more of a dark love story and it's beautifully done. Frances Dee is outstanding as the young nurse who comes to a West Indian island to care for the wife of Tom Conway in the Rochester role. The best sequences finds Dee taking her charge through a plantation at night to a voodoo ceremony followed by an even more frightening scene when the giant native Carrefour, (Darby Jones), comes to steal the wife. If this a B-Movie it is one of the best ever made.

After watching I Walked With A Zombie I was shaken a bit, a little unnerved as it were. But when I started to analyze the film I was wondering just what did I see?Frances Dee has been hired to look after Tom Conway's wife Christine Gordon who is in a coma, but this is the sleepwalking type of coma and the natives have identified here as a zombie. Here illness whatever it is has cast a pall on the household. Conway and his mother apparently make a nice income which is half brother James Ellison drinks a lot of it away.One thing that was interesting and highly unusual. The natives are the descendants of escaped slaves and the heritage there is one of reverting back to their tribal beliefs as an act of defiance. Slavery with few exceptions is rarely dealt with from the slave or former slave point of view.Edith Barrett plays Conway and Ellison's mother. She likes Dee and views here as an ideal daughter-in-law for one of her kids. She also has another role on the island, one I can't reveal here. Val Lewton produced and Jacques Tourneur directed I Walked With A Zombie. It's not great, I think it was butchered in the editing department. But the mood that is created will linger with you. And the ending is decades ahead of its time, something you might see in a Stephen King work.

*Spoiler/plot- I walked with a zombie, 1943. A Canadian pretty nurse arrives in the West Indies island St. Sebastian to care for the wife of wealthy sugar plantation owner. The young nurse thinks she seems to be living in paradise, despite plantation owner's dim view of his surroundings. His half-brother is much cheerier. When the nurse finally meets the plantation owner's wife, she finds the wife walking in the garden late at night. The wife is in a trance state. The family doctor explains that the wife has a severe tropical fever that burned out portions of her spine, leaving her in a zombie-like state. It's recommended to try insulin shock treatment. The nurse also begins to wonder if local native voodoo might be able to cure the wife.*Special Stars- James Ellison, Frances Dee, Tom Conway, Edith Barret, James Bell, Sir Lancelot. Dir- Jacques Tourneur.*Theme- The occult is dangerous.*Trivia/location/goofs- American, RKO studios. Val Lewton did not like the article "I Walked With A Zombie" by Inez Wallace that had been optioned so he adapted the story to fit the novel "Jane Eyre" because he felt the article's plot was too clichéd. The two figures seen walking along the beach during the opening credits are Frances Dee and Darby Jones. *Emotion- A horror noir film from this period in film history. In this film; less is more. The audience gets a chance to be involved in the film's action and goes along for a fun intriguing ride. *Based On- Jane Eyre book and West Indies island zombie myths.