I Walked with a Zombie **** (1943, Frances Dee, Tom Conway, James Ellison, Edith Barrett, James Bell, Christine Gordon) – Classic Movie Review 2674

Director Jacques Tourneur creates a superb air of unease in this exceptional 1943 vintage cult horror movie.

In one of his finest, most eerie films, producer Val Lewton employs his zombies to poetic effect and weaves them round a calypso framework (sung by the singer Sir Lancelot) and a plot borrowed from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.

The story by Inez Wallace is atmospherically set in the West Indies, where young Canadian nurse Betsy (Frances Dee) arrives to help rich plantation manager Paul Holland (Tom Conway)’s catatonic wife Jessica (Christine Gordon).

She is in some kind of schizophrenic stupor, so the Haitian locals think she’s a zombie. Conway has other problems, including a weird mother (Edith Barrett) inclining to voodoo and brother (James Ellison) who’s a drunkard in love with his sister.

Conway and Gordon make a deliciously worrying pair, while J Roy Hunt’s imaginative, shadowy camerawork easily compensates for a low budget.

Much credit must go to the straight-faced performers, screen-writers Ardel Wray and Curt Siodmak, the production crew (especially set designers Albert S D’Agostino and Walter E Keller), musician Roy Webb and the zombie extras, and as well of course to director Tourneur.

But ultimately it’s Lewton’s triumph and the highlight of his spine-tingling career.

The film has been released on DVD as part of The Val Lewton Horror Collection.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2674

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