I Walked With a Zombie (1943) Review

Title: I Walked With a Zombie
Year: 1943
Director: Jacques Tourneur
Country: US
Language: English

I have a great affection for RKO Studios' films of the 1940's. From grand melodramas like Orson Welles' Citizen Kane to creepy thrillers like Jacques Tourneur's Cat People (1942), the studio is a showcase for old Hollywood classics. I Walked With a Zombie (1943) is a studio film that alluded me for quite some time. I imagined it being a lesser version of Night of The Living Dead, but actually the film is far more about an atmosphere of dread, rather than a creature feature. 

A nurse (Francis Dee) is hired to care for the wife of a sugar plantation owner, who has been acting strangely, on a Caribbean island.

I Walked With a Zombie is Val Lewton's second collaboration with Tournuer, who had directed Cat People a year prior. The story, partially lifted from Jane Eyre, is a powerful story about the power of belief, free will, race relations, and the problematic history of our ancestors. It is a film remarkably ahead of its time in regards to its anti-colonialist message; showing how African culture could be co-opted by the white man as an element of control. 

Director Tourneur and cinematographer J. Roy Hunt give us a surreal macabre film that jolts the senses in both a visual and audio presentation. Each time we hear the sound of the villagers' drums our hearts beat with more intensity. I Walked With a Zombie also has power in its silence; there are many quiet scenes that rattle the senses.