31 Days Of Horror Day 30: Someone Asked Me To Be An Expert In Something Part 7

(Previous Somebody Asked Me To Be An Expert In Something were part of a Film Noir and then Neo Noir series that I was asked to help program and host. Starting with this entry, I am now the sole programmer, and the films will no longer be just crime films. Once again this is written for speech so I apologize for any irregularities of cadence)




Of all the films I’ve had the opportunity to show in this series, I Walked With A Zombie is the one I’m most excited about.

Out Of The Past, which was also directed by Jacques Tourneur was actually the first film I screened for this series, almost a year ago now. And as much as I truly love that film, I couldn’t help but be just a little sorry that I wasn’t showing this one.

This movie is a product not just of Jacques Tourneur but of Val Lewton, who in the forties produced a series of horror films which are among the finest ever made. Tourneur only made two films with Lewton. Though the two were lifelong friends and knew each other from years before when both worked for the legendary producer David O. Selznick. Saying the two influenced each other doesn’t’ seem quite strong enough. The other film the pair made was Cat People. Of the two Cat People remains the more well known, popular, and certainly more influential of the two.

But I would argue I Walked With A Zombie is the better film.

I Walked With A Zombie contains many elements usually found in Lewton. The literary allusions, with much of the film culled from Jane Eyre. His central female characters. What has been called his figure of beautiful sorrow. His level neutral view of the occult. The kind of darkness that led him to snap at one studio executive who claimed that his films had to many messages, “I Only have one message. And that is Death Is Good.”

But even among Lewton’s films I Walked With A Zombie stands apart.

Saying a movie is one of a kind is usually a trap. No matter how odd a movie may appear chances are there’s something that is at least a bit like it somewhere. But I can honestly say I don’t believe anything quite like this movie has been ever made before.
There is a rhythm and flux to this film that is unlike any I have ever seen. The possible exception being Night Of The Hunter. Calling a movie dream like is usually an easy out, but I Walked With A Zombie carries with it all the dread and poeticism of a real dream.














I don’t want to delve too deeply into the plot or individual scenes, incase this would turn out to be your first experience with the film. I will only say of Lewton in general, that Horror is usually derived from a source of physical revulsion, while Terror comes from a source of mental revulsion. As someone suggests in Martin Scorsese’s superlative documentary on Lewton, From The Shadows. All of Lewton’s films are terror films.

Which is why I think Lewton’s films have held up so well. While so many older horror movies, say the films produced by Lewton’s rivals at Universal at the time, are watched today as camp or at the very least through a heavy filter of nostalgia, Lewton’s remain as cutting as the day they were released.

So please sit back and enjoy I Walked With A Zombie. I don’t think you’ve ever seen anything quite like it.

POST SCRIPT So, I'll be showing I Walked With A Zombie later this afternoon. Then racing down to LA to go see The Aero Theater's Fifth Annual Dusk Til Dawn Horrorthon. Which has for five years, proven to be the best night of horror filmgoing LA has to offer. As well as my personal favorite night of movie going of the year. Aside from the great programming and wonderful prints, The Aero creates a found Footage montage between each film that will drive men to madness and have you screaming "THE POSSIBILITY OF ME WORKING IS REMOTE!!!" At the top of your lungs. At four AM.

I wouldn't miss it For The World.

So if you're an LA Reader and you're not going to The Aero, well what the fuck is wrong with you? And if you're an LA reader and you are going to The Aero, please say hello. I'll be the one wearing the "Camp Crystal Lake Counselor" T-shirt, Pea Coat, and mainlining as many stimulants outside the theater on breaks as possible.

As I will be spending Halloween afternoon and possibly night with some LA friends, I hope you'll forgive me if Halloween's post goes up a bit later then normal.

If some disaster does strike though, let me take a moment to thank you for reading through 31 Days and wish you a Happy Halloween. There's some great stuff coming up this November. Including a few more horror films that I couldn't quite fit into 31 Days but couldn't stand the idea of not writing about. As well as a some great new stuff I'm really excited about.

So stay sick, stay scared. And Don't go trick or treating without your boomstick!

31 Days Of Horror: Day 23: The Unseen #43: Ghost Of Frankenstein

Why’d I Buy It?: Came in the Universal Frankenstein Pack I purchased (AKA, the good thing that came out of Van Helsing)

Why Haven’t I Watched It?: I’ve always thought of Ghost Of Frankenstein as kind of a non entity. As I was loading the disc in the player I tried to think of a single thing I’d heard about it, good or bad, ever, and was buffaloed to realize I really hadn’t heard anything.

When a band of fans as nutty, passionate, and chatty as Universal Monster Fans are mum on a movie you know that’s a bad sign.

How Was It?: Not bad. But not good. Everything about the film from it’s runtime on down belies its lack of ambition.

The Ghost Of Frankenstein opens with a bunch of peasants murming darkly, occasionally raising their voices in a communal shout of anger and fear. As peasants in a Universal Monster Movie are want to do. Currently they’re haranguing the mayor, telling him to destroy the last vestiges of Frankenstein’s Castle thanks to incessant flute music and/or the possibility of curses, presenting their argument with cool logical statements like “IT’S EVIL!!!” and “YGOR DOESN’T DIE THAT EASILY.” After blowing the shit out of Frankenstein’s Castle, they predictably release the monster from his sulfury tomb. Minus his Fur Pimp Coat.



Way To Go Guys.

The rest of the film follows Lugosi as he tracks down the son of Frankenstein to help do… something to the monster, after he is struck by lightning and made more powerful. Which really doesn’t make even the faintest bit of internal logic as Frankenstein got knocked out by lightning in the last film. And… you know what, I just don’t have the heart to pick apart the logical inconsistencies of The Universal Horror universe at the moment. That way lies madness. So please forgive me for abstaining.

“But wait” I hear you say er somehow, wasn’t the son of Frankenstein featured somewhat apathetically in Son Of Frankenstein? Well yes but this is the other son of Frankenstein that Ygor seeks. And he runs a healthcare spa! No word if he is infact a brother from another mother.

Ygor blackmails Frankenstein into curing the monster (OF WHAT???). And things proceed just about how you would expect them to.

I’ve never been a huge Lon Chaney Jr. fan (Outside of The Wolfman natch), and never did he appear as out of his depth as when he was playing Frankenstein's Monster. Reducing it to the stiff armed caricature that so often served as a parody of Karloff’s. And which Karloff himself so studiously avoided. Plus his Monster always looks chubby. There I said it. I don’t know why that bothers me so, but it does. There’s no way around that.

Lugosi is fine, but his Ygor has been toned down both physically and emotionally. Lugosi’s turn; sinister, pitful and truly frightening, made Son Of Frankenstein. It was arguably the best performance of his career, and even arguably the best to appear in the Universal Movies period. And though his performance is entertaining, in Ghost, it’s not that. And he takes a reeeeeeeeeaaaaaallly weird turn around the forty minute mark that the movie never recovers from.

In fact the whole movie kind of takes a dive around that point. Everyone (the monster included) inexplicably turns into kind of a dick. And the viewer’s investment in drops precipitously.

This is not a Universal film of the first Water. But while no one is going to confuse Ghost Of Frankenstein with the true masterpieces of Whale, Browning, and Freund; it’s a tough movie to get mad at. While I won’t be in a hurry to revisit it again. It is a solid slice of B-Movie fun.

And what would an October be without a little Universal Horror?