Customer Reviews

I Walked With a Zombie [VHS]

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Jacques Tourneur's work in general and this film in particular contains the most creative use of lighting in the history of small to medium budget films. Narrative ellipsis, elegance,and modulated low-key performances are the defining characteristics of all the Lewton-Tourneur collaborations of the 1940s. What a meeting of minds and sensibilities must have existed between these two gifted film makers-it's all up there on the screen within the boundaries of RKO's miniscule budgets. This is a truly haunting and mysterious film, Jane Eyre transported to the West Indies with voodoo mysticism in place of the atmosphere of the English moors. J Roy Hunt's creative chiaroscuro and Sir Lancelot's insistent balladeer's chorus help to build a cumulatively uneasy mood which extends to the almost dream-like performances of Frances Dee (the gravely beautiful Mrs Joel McCrea), James Ellison and Tom Conway among others. Tourneur blends all these elements into a poetic tour de force about reason struggling with the unknown. Whyever are the Lewton films at RKO unavailable in DVD? I would have thought they would be among the first classics to arrive in this exciting new medium.

Frances Dee (she was also Mrs. Joel McCrea for 50 years) is a private nurse hired by handsome plantation owner Conway to care for his wife, who is suffering from a mysterious illness that has left her mute and in a permanent trance-like state.........Like JANE EYRE, the nurse falls in love with her employer, and in order to free him of his burden, she takes the woman to a voodoo doctor in the film's heart-pounding climax. Unlike its classic predecessor WHITE ZOMBIE (1932) which believes in zombies, Lewton's film lets you make up your own mind. Exquisitely paced by director Tourneur, the film unravels the motivations of its characters slowly, keeping you slightly off balance while trying to decide if the supernatural is fact or only belief. Adding to the uncanny mood is a calypso score plus amazing Darby Jones as a dude you wouldn't want to meet on a dark night! One of the great supernatural mood pieces of the cinema, this cult favourite derives from a series of articles written for a Hearst Sunday supplement by Inez Wallace. Initially skeptical, she claimed to have actually seen zombies working as slave labour on a Haitian plantation. Rather than being dead, however, they were very much alive, but deprived of the their voices and free-will by poisonous drugs!

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 philosophising, and the performances which, excepting Sir Lancelot's lovely sing-song, are barely adequate. Focus instead on the lyrical scenes that unfold like an opium 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.

Frances Dee stars in this psychological horror thriller about a nurse who is sent to the carribean to tend to a pacient. When the nurse(Dee) goes to the island only to see her pacient in such a condition she realizes something is wrong. The only solution is to have her healed with starnge voodoo rituals. A very chilling sequance in which the two women walk through the corn field only to find a dog hanging in a tree and to see a life drained zombie awaiting for them on the other side of the field. James Ellison also stars as the brother of the sick woman. And featuring Tom Conway as Ellison's brother. A suspenseful movie with a chilling atmosphere. Directed by Jacques Tourner, 69 Minutes

We are treated to exotic titles and expectations with titles such as "I walked With a Zombie." My only encounters with Zombies are those that process in an UNIX operating system that can not be killed. I also watched "Weekend at Bernie's II."

As with other Lewton productions he got a way with a psychological thriller in the guise of a monster movie. In the days of sailing ships a nurse (Frances Dee) is employed to go to San Sebastian to look after a plantation owner's wife (Christine Gordon.) She fined that her charge is more than just a victim of a disease that heft her without will. Turns out if you cut the wife she does not bleed. We all know what that means.

The true story is the relationship to man and wife, man and nurse, nurse and wife, brother and brother, brother and wife, need I say more? Could it mean that there is nothing supernatural or is love moving in mysterious natural.

Can this all be straightened out or is Jessica Holland the wife destined to be zomiated for ever and the nurse must learn to love from afar?

Yeah Lord pity them who are dead and give peace and happiness to the living.

Weekend at Bernie's II

"There's no beauty here, only death and decay. Everything dies here. Even the stars." -- Paul Holland


Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur teamed up to create another atmospheric masterpiece in the horror genre in I Walked With a Zombie. RKO's Roy Webb once again supplied an appropriately moody score in this film of mystery and voodoo. Lewton proved that a big budget wasn't everything with a string of films made during the 1940's now highly regarded as some of the finest in the genre. Photographer J. Roy Hunt gets credit here as well, his use of black and white to create a mood both eerie and real a big plus.

Underrated Frances Dee stars as the Canadian nurse offered a job on a sugar plantation in St. Sebastion in the West Indies. Her thoughts of palm trees and ocean breezes lead her to accept, but the viewer senses danger when she is asked whether she believes in witchcraft before consenting. She meets the enigmatic Paul Holland on the ship and in no time falls in love with her lush surroundings and the enigmatic Paul. His wife Jessica is ill and unresponsive. She is the reason Paul's half-brother Wesley drinks. Dee learns the real story while lunching with Wes, when a song played by the locals at the cafe reveals all.

Dee is lovely and genuine here, giving a nice performance. She misreads Paul's feelings about his wife, however, and in an attempt to cure her, sets in motion events beyond her control with a walk through the sugar cane on a windy night. She has heard of the voodoo magic, and is shocked to discover Paul's mother deep within the fields. Like many of Lewton's best efforts in the genre, I Walked With a Zombie is dreamlike and darkly romantic, a foreboding hovering over every frame, even in brighter moments. There is almost a gothic feel to this one. If Rebecca or Jane Eyre were filmed as horror stories, on a much smaller budget, they would be I Walked With a Zombie.

This is a cinematic masterpiece and a must see film for fans of classic films. But don't watch it alone on a dark and rainy night.

What a strange, short movie! Set in Haiti, around 65 years ago, a Canadian nurse comes to the island to care for a woman who appears to be catatonic. We discover that the patient is, instead, a zombie! None of the two zombies in this film chase people, eat people, or any of the other typical stuff. They are just stupified and can be controlled by others. It is a strange, dark little film that achieves its effect through lighting and excellant editing. This is a gem of a film -- like a great short story instead of a novel. The film lasts just a little over an hour, and uses every minute effectively.

I have always considered "I Walked With a Zombie" to be archetypical of what might be called "horror-noir." It is a moody, suspenseful black and white film, skillfully portrayed by all the actors, who play well off each other and off the premise of the story. Music gives just the right eerie note to build on the apprehension of the audience. Cinematography is excellent, with superb effect of light and shadow to create the chilling ambience. Unlike many latterday films, the makers of this film seem to have understood that they were playing to an intelligent audience that would understand the subtleties of the film, with no need for blatant, screaming examples to explain every nuance. No gore or grue -- no "special effects," just an excellently underplayed manipulation of the audience's own fearful imaginings to create a superior example of this film genre. Definitely a "must-see" for true film buffs and for anyone else who has not, yet, been privileged to view this type of film.

I think that this is Val Lewton's second best horror film, the first being The Body Snatcher. Director Jacques Tourneur does a fine turn here and the acting is better than it was in Cat People which loses a lot on the small screen. The walk through the cane fields towards the voodoo ridden home fort is extremely impressive. The life in death theme which occupies so much of this film and Lewton's Seventh Victim is powerfully realized.

When I walked with a Zombie came out in 1943, the New York Times critic did not like it and thought that with its palpitating zombie, it exhibited an unhealthy attitude towards life. His was not an invalid point of view and yet this Val Lewton production is extremely effective even if it is a morbid and oppressive work at times. Certainly the forces of superstition and darkness are victorious in the end. The death in life theme, so prominent in Lewton's Seventh Victim (a lesser work) is at the forefront. The acting is better than it was in Cat People, photography and set design are excellent. The screenplay maintains a haunting ambience consistently. An eerie walk by the nurse and her zombie patient through a sugar cane field to the voodoo home fort accompanied by the incessant beating of voodoo drums may be the film's most memorable image. One of director Jacques Tourneur's finest works. 3 1/2 stars