I Walked With a Zombie (1943)

I Walked With a Zombie (1943)

In director Jacques Tourneur's (and RKO's) acclaimed zombie supernatural-occult horror film, it was an other-worldly variant of the 1847 Jane Eyre novel by Charlotte Bronte; it was produced by famed RKO producer Val Lewton, who had already worked on Cat People (1942) and would soon produce The Body Snatcher (1945). The script by Curt Siodmak and Ardel Wray was based upon Inez Wallace's 1943 book "I Walked with a Zombie."

The low-budget, creepy film was very effective for its moody and atmospheric tone and tension, shadowy nighttime scenes, and visually-stylistic terror regarding dark family secrets, voodoo rituals and legends.

• the brooding, retrospective mystical melodrama told about the work of trained single Canadian nurse Betsy Connell (Frances Dee); the film was told in flashback with her narrated description, beginning with her voice-over recollection after the title credits:
  • "I walked with a zombie. It does seem an odd thing to say. Had anyone said that to me a year ago, I'm not at all sure I would have known what a zombie was. Oh, I might have had some notion that they were strange and frightening - even a little funny. It all began in such an ordinary way."
• in the opening scene, set in Ottawa, Canada on a snowy day, Betsy Connell was interviewed for a nursing position located far away in the West Indies; one of the odd questions during the questioning was: "Do you believe in witchcraft?" - and she laughed it off; she accepted the job and thought to herself:
  • "That's not so bad, sit under a palm tree, go swimming, take sunbaths. Palm trees."
• in the next scene, she was on the deck of a schooner bound for the Caribbean island of Saint Sebastian, watching the stars, and looking out on the horizon after seeing flying fish, and sensing beauty:
  • "I looked at those great glowing stars and I felt the warm wind on my cheeks and I breathed deep and every bit of me inside myself said, 'How beautiful'"
• she was interrupted by Paul Holland (Tom Conway), her new employer - a rich yet melancholy sugar plantation owner from the Caribbean island of Saint Sebastian; he had read her thoughts:
  • "It is not beautiful...It's easy enough to read the thoughts of a newcomer. Everything seems beautiful because you don't understand. Those flying fish, they are not leaping for joy. They're jumping in terror. Bigger fish want to eat them. That luminous water, it takes its gleam from millions of tiny dead bodies. It's the glitter of putrescence. There's no beauty here, only death and decay...Everything good dies here, even the stars"
• Betsy's strangely-afflicted patient was the guilt-ridden Paul Holland's matriarchal wife Jessica (Christine Gordon) - his catatonic (trance-like), sleep-walking, comatose and semi-paralyzed invalid wife; she exhibited symptoms of inactivity and an inability to speak (was she a zombie or one of the 'living dead"?); Jessica's doctor claimed that her catatonic condition (with no will of her own, no speaking, and seemingly lobotomized) was caused by an incurable tropical fever; the film's mystery centered around the cause of Jessica's condition
• by mid-film, Betsy had slowly begun to fall in love with guilt-ridden Paul, and then learned that Paul and his younger, alcoholic half-brother and employee Wesley Rand (James Ellison) had a difficult relationship; the two brothers had earlier quarreled over the love of Paul's wife in a love triangle, and Wesley had an affair with Jessica; afterwards, Wesley blamed Paul for Jessica's condition; was her affliction possibly because of Paul's retribution against Jessica for their adulterous affair?
• Betsy was convinced that she could cure the "living dead" Jessica with a shot of insulin; she went into action to cure her, but the shock treatment failed; she learned from Jessica's native maid Alma (Theresa Harris) that a local voodoo priest had cured a woman with a similar condition; Alma drew her a map to the "Home Fort" (Hounfour) where a local voodoo ceremony would take place
• in the film's most unsettling nighttime scene, Betsy took a haunted walk as she escorted her patient Jessica (without permission) through tall and billowing sugar cane fields (adorned with several talismans, including a skull and hanging goat carcass sacrifice) to the local voodoo ceremony; the haunted, dream-like sequence was superbly photographed with tracking shots
• in the darkness, a huge, eerie, bug-eyed and towering zombie-like guard or gatekeeper Carre Four (Darby Jones) abruptly appeared as she passed through a crossroads - it was a memorable image
• Jessica was led to the dwelling (houmfort) of the voodoo worshippers; a major plot twist occurred next; Betsy entered a shack to consult with the voodoo witch doctor priestess, and discovered it was the matriarch of the family, Mrs. Rand (Edith Barrett) (who practiced voodoo in secret), a doctor and the mother of Paul and Wesley
• when Mrs. Rand had discovered that her sons had fought over Jessica, Paul's wife, and threatened to break up the family (when Jessica threatened to run away with her lover Wesley), she had put a 'living dead' zombie curse on her
• the disturbed Wesley continued to believe that Jessica was truly a zombie, and to rid her (and free her) of her condition, Wesley stabbed Jessica's heart with an iron arrow (at the same time a voodoo doll effigy of Jessica was pierced by a voodoo master)

• in a trance, after carrying her corpse to the sea, Wesley committed suicide by drowning; Carrefour - who had followed Wesley to the sea, brought Jessica's body back to the house; now reunited with Betsy, Paul embraced her
• the film concluded with a voice-over prayer:
  • "Oh, Lord God most holy, deliver them from the bitter pains of eternal death. The woman was a wicked woman, and she was dead in her own life. Yea, Lord, dead in the selfishness of her spirit, and the man followed her. Her steps led him down to evil. Her feet took hold on death. Forgive him, oh Lord, who knowest the secret of all hearts. Yea, Lord, pity them who are dead and give peace and happiness to the living."