I Walked With a Zombie (1943)

dir. Jacques Tourneur cast Frances Dee, Tom Conway, James Ellison, Edith Barrett, James Bell

Betsy Connell (Dee) a Canadian nurse, accepts a job to care for the wife of an English planter, Paul Holland (Conway) on the Caribbean island of San Sebastian. The woman, Jessica Holland (Christine Gordon), is suffering from a strange illness which renders her mute and unresponsive, but still allows her to be ambulatory - a kind of waking coma. Holland's black servant Alma (Theresa Harris) tells Betsy that voodoo may be able to cure Jessica. Falling in love with the brooding Paul, the selfless Betsy decides to take Jessica to a voodoo ceremony in hopes of finding a cure for her condition.

This is one of the best horror movies ever made. The producer, Val Lewton, made a series of low-budget horror films for RKO Studios in the mid-1940's. All of these films emphasized atmosphere over shocks and many of them, such as Cat People and The Body Snatcher are rightly considered among the genre's true classics. I Walked with a Zombie is one of Lewton's best and competes with Cat People as the most admired of all his films. Rather than trying to induce terror or revulsion in the viewer, it goes for a feeling of eerie strangeness. The most famous sequence comes as Betsy leads Jessica toward the location of the voodoo ceremony. Under a dark sky, accompanied by the wailing wind and the distant sound of voodoo drums, the women make their way through fields of tall sugar cane, unable to see more than a few feet in front of them. They encounter signs of death on the way: a cattle skull stuck on a pole, a dead goat hanging on a small tree, a human skull inside a ring of stones, and finally Carrefour (Darby Jones), the towering, cadaverous, zombie (presumably) lookout for the Voodoo priests. Because it is so successful in creating a fearful mood without the presence (or even suggestion) of violence or bloodshed, this is one of the key sequences in the history of horror cinema. There are many other memorable scenes as well: Jessica, in a long white nightdress wandering the grounds of Paul's "fort", Carrefour, seen in shadow, looming outside Betsy's room at night.

Despite the title, I Walked with a Zombie is one of the most literate horror films ever made (its plot was based on Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre), and a reminder of what horror films can be. The film deals with the way in which past events can cast a shadow over the present and lead to guilt and unhappiness. The black residents of the island cry at a birth and celebrate at funerals because of the brutal legacy of slavery. Paul is morbid and unhappy and his half brother, Wesley (James Ellison), while seemingly cheerful, regularly drinks himself into a stupor. The kind and brave Betsy eventually uncovers the family secret which caused all this unhappiness, but is unable to prevent tragedy, though the film holds out hope that she and Paul may find happiness together. The movie's horror is in the tortured psyches of the characters, and the fear of the unknown, more than in any horrific event.

Another notable thing about the film is that it is one of the few horror movies to treat Voodoo as a legitimate religion that is not equivalent to satanism. The ceremony that we witness is strange, but Betsy and Jessica, the white interlopers there, are not threatened. The film takes no position on whether Voodoo has any actual power or not; everything the characters experience could have a logical explanation. It is portrayed as a deeply held spiritual belief which helps the black islanders cope with their history of slavery and powerlessness.

I was very glad to have the opportunity to see I Walked with a Zombie again after a lapse of several years since my first viewing, and it was even better than I remembered. It is a must-see for anyone interested in the history of horror cinema, or who prefers atmosphere over violence.