''I Walked with a Zombie'' is a 1943 American
horror film
Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes.
Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...
directed by
Jacques Tourneur
Jacques Tourneur (; November 12, 1904 – December 19, 1977) was a French film director known for the classic film noir ''Out of the Past'' and a series of low-budget horror films he made for RKO Studios, including ''Cat People (1942 film), Cat ...
and produced by
Val Lewton
Val Lewton (May 7, 1904 – March 14, 1951) was a Russian-American novelist, film producer and screenwriter best known for a string of low-budget horror films he produced for RKO Pictures in the 1940s. His son, also named Val Lewton, was a pain ...
for
RKO Pictures
RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orphe ...
. It stars
James Ellison James Ellison may refer to:
* James O. Ellison (1929–2014), U.S. federal judge
* James T. Ellison (1862–1920s), New York gangster
*James Ellison (actor) (1910–1993), American film actor
*James Ellison (footballer, born 1901) (1901–1958), En ...
,
Frances Dee
Frances Marion Dee (November 26, 1909 – March 6, 2004) was an American actress. Her first film was the musical ''Playboy of Paris'' (1930). She starred in the film ''An American Tragedy'' (1931). She is also known for starring in the 1943 Va ...
, and
Tom Conway
Tom Conway (born Thomas Charles Sanders, 15 September 1904 – 22 April 1967) was a British film, television, and radio actor remembered for playing private detectives (including The Falcon, Sherlock Holmes, Bulldog Drummond, and The Saint) ...
, and follows a Canadian nurse who travels to care for the ailing wife of a sugar
plantation
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...
owner in the
Caribbean
The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...
, where she witnesses
Vodou rituals and possibly encounters
the walking dead. The screenplay, written by
Curt Siodmak
Curt Siodmak (August 10, 1902 – September 2, 2000) was a German-American novelist and screenwriter. He is known for his work in the horror and science fiction film genres, with such films as '' The Wolf Man'' and '' Donovan's Brain'' (the l ...
and
Ardel Wray
Ardel Wray ( Mockbee; October 28, 1907 – October 14, 1983) was an American screenwriter and story editor, best known for her work on Val Lewton's classic horror films in the 1940s. Her screenplay credits from that era include ''I Walked with ...
, is based on an article of the same title by
Inez Wallace, and also partly reinterprets the narrative of the 1847 novel ''
Jane Eyre
''Jane Eyre'' ( ; originally published as ''Jane Eyre: An Autobiography'') is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The first ...
'' by
Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Brontë (, commonly ; 21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855) was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels became classics of English literature.
She enlisted i ...
.
The film premiered in New York City on April 21, 1943, before receiving a wider theatrical release later that month. It has been analyzed for its themes of slavery and racism, and for its depiction of beliefs associated with
African diaspora religions
African diaspora religions are a number of related Pagan beliefs that developed in the Americas in various nations of the Caribbean, Latin America and the Southern United States. They derive from Pagan traditional African religions with some infl ...
, particularly
Haitian Vodou
Haitian Vodou is an African diasporic religion that developed in Haiti between the 16th and 19th centuries. It arose through a process of syncretism between several traditional religions of West and Central Africa and Roman Catholicism. There is ...
. Though it received mixed reviews upon its release, retrospective assessments of the film have been more positive.
Plot
![Darby Jones as Carrefour in the trailer for I Walked with a Zombie (1943)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/Darby_Jones_as_Carrefour_in_the_trailer_for_I_Walked_with_a_Zombie_%281943%29.jpg)
On a snowy day in
Ottawa
Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
, Betsy Connell, a young nurse, is being interviewed to care for the wife of Paul Holland, the owner of a
sugar plantation
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...
on the
Caribbean
The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...
island of Saint Sebastian. Although she is not told much about the patient, Betsy looks forward to living in a warmer climate and accepts the job, laughing it off when asked if she believes in witchcraft.
The coachman who takes Betsy to Paul's house, Fort Holland, tells her the
Afro-Caribbean
Afro-Caribbean people or African Caribbean are Caribbean people who trace their full or partial ancestry to Sub-Saharan Africa. The majority of the modern African-Caribbeans descend from Africans taken as slaves to colonial Caribbean via the ...
population of Saint Sebastian is descended from slaves brought there by Paul's ancestors. At her first dinner, Betsy meets Paul's younger half-brother and employee, Wesley Rand, who, though good-humored, clearly resents Paul. She encounters Jessica, her patient, wandering the grounds of Fort Holland that night, and is initially frightened by the nonverbal, affectless woman, who, as Dr. Maxwell later informs Betsy, was left without the willpower to speak or act by herself after a
tropical fever
Tropical diseases are diseases that are prevalent in or unique to tropical and subtropical regions. The diseases are less prevalent in temperate climates, due in part to the occurrence of a cold season, which controls the insect population by forci ...
irreparably damaged her
spinal cord
The spinal cord is a long, thin, tubular structure made up of nervous tissue, which extends from the medulla oblongata in the brainstem to the lumbar region of the vertebral column (backbone). The backbone encloses the central canal of the spi ...
.
Betsy learns from a
calypso musician's song that Paul kept Jessica from running away with Wesley right before she became sick. The issues surrounding Jessica have driven Wesley to drink, and the simmering tension between him and Paul frequently threatens to boil over. Paul apologizes to Betsy for bringing her to Saint Sebastian and admits he feels responsible for Jessica's condition. Betsy, who has fallen in love with Paul, becomes determined to make him happy by curing Jessica and gets him to agree to a risky
insulin shock treatment. When that fails, Alma, Paul's maid, convinces Betsy that she should take Jessica to be healed by the ''
houngan
Oungan (also written as ''houngan'') is the term for a male priest in Haitian Vodou (a female priest is known as a (''mambo''). The term is derived from Gbe languages (Fon, Ewe, Adja, Phla, Gen, Maxi and Gun). The word hounnongan means chief ...
'' (
Vodou priest) at the ''
houmfort'' (Vodou temple).
After a man dressed in black performs a ritual dance using a small sword, Betsy gets in line at the ''houmfort'' to ask the
spirit
Spirit or spirits may refer to:
Liquor and other volatile liquids
* Spirits, a.k.a. liquor, distilled alcoholic drinks
* Spirit or tincture, an extract of plant or animal material dissolved in ethanol
* Volatile (especially flammable) liquids, ...
Damballa
Damballa, also spelled Damballah, Dambala, Dambalah, among other variations ( ht, Danbala), is one of the most important of all loa, spirits in Haitian Voodoo and other African diaspora religious traditions such as Obeah. He is traditionally po ...
to heal Jessica. Instead, she is pulled inside a hut and is shocked to see Mrs. Rand, Paul and Wesley's mother, who works with Maxwell. Mrs. Rand reveals that, with the ''houngan''s knowledge, she has been telling the islanders that Vodou spirits speak through her so they will comply with her medical and sanitary recommendations. Meanwhile, Jessica attracts the attention of the man in black, who stabs her in the arm. She does not bleed, causing murmurs of "
zombie
A zombie (Haitian French: , ht, zonbi) is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. Zombies are most commonly found in horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, in whic ...
" among the onlookers, and Mrs. Rand tells Betsy to take
Jessica back to Fort Holland. An upset Paul greets them, but he softens when he learns Betsy was trying to help him and lets her know he no longer loves his wife.
The Voudou congregation demands Jessica be delivered to them for further ritualistic tests, so Maxwell and the local authorities want her sent to an
asylum
Asylum may refer to:
Types of asylum
* Asylum (antiquity), places of refuge in ancient Greece and Rome
* Benevolent Asylum, a 19th-century Australian institution for housing the destitute
* Cities of Refuge, places of refuge in ancient Judea
...
on a different island. Paul resists because Wesley wants Jessica to stay, and he tells Betsy to return to Canada before he makes her as unhappy as he made Jessica before her illness. At night, Carrefour, a zombie who guards a crossroads, is sent to retrieve Jessica, approaching Betsy instead after she puts on Jessica's robe, but Mrs. Rand orders him to leave.
Dr. Maxwell visits Fort Holland to report there will be an official investigation to determine Jessica's fate. Faced with scandal, and with her sons at each other's throats, Mrs. Rand says Jessica is not sick or insane, but dead, as she went to the ''houmfort'' the night Jessica tried to run away with Wesley and,
possessed
Possessed may refer to:
Possession
* Possession (disambiguation), having some degree of control over something else
** Spirit possession, whereby gods, demons, animas, or other disincarnate entities may temporarily take control of a human body
*** ...
, asked the ''houngan'' to make Jessica a zombie. Only Wesley believes the story, and he later asks Betsy to
euthanize
Euthanasia (from el, εὐθανασία 'good death': εὖ, ''eu'' 'well, good' + θάνατος, ''thanatos'' 'death') is the practice of intentionally ending life to eliminate pain and suffering.
Different countries have different eutha ...
Jessica, though Betsy refuses.
Using a
small effigy of Jessica, the man in black and the ''houngan'' attempt to draw her to the ''houmfort''. Paul and Betsy stop her the first time, but Wesley helps her the second, following with an arrow removed from a garden statue depicting
Saint Sebastian
Saint Sebastian (in Latin: ''Sebastianus''; Narbo, Gallia Narbonensis, Roman Empire c. AD 255 – Rome, Italia, Roman Empire c. AD 288) was an early Christian saint and martyr. According to traditional belief, he was killed during the Dioclet ...
that was once the
figurehead
In politics, a figurehead is a person who ''de jure'' (in name or by law) appears to hold an important and often supremely powerful title or office, yet ''de facto'' (in reality) exercises little to no actual power. This usually means that they ...
of a Holland-family
slave ship
Slave ships were large cargo ships specially built or converted from the 17th to the 19th century for transporting slaves. Such ships were also known as "Guineamen" because the trade involved human trafficking to and from the Guinea coast ...
. When the man in black stabs the doll with a pin, Wesley stabs Jessica with the arrow and, pursued slowly by Carrefour, carries her body into the sea. Jessica and Wesley are discovered floating in the surf, and their bodies are brought back to Fort Holland. Betsy and Paul console each other.
Cast
Production
Development
RKO
RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheu ...
executives, rather than producer
Val Lewton
Val Lewton (May 7, 1904 – March 14, 1951) was a Russian-American novelist, film producer and screenwriter best known for a string of low-budget horror films he produced for RKO Pictures in the 1940s. His son, also named Val Lewton, was a pain ...
, chose the film's title, which was taken from an article of the same name written by
Inez Wallace for ''
American Weekly Magazine''. Whereas the article detailed Wallace's experience meeting "zombies", by which she meant, not the literal living dead, but rather people she encountered working on a
plantation
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...
in
Haiti
Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...
whose vocal cords and cognitive abilities had been impaired by drug use, rendering them obedient servants who understood and followed simple orders, Lewton asked screenwriters
Curt Siodmak
Curt Siodmak (August 10, 1902 – September 2, 2000) was a German-American novelist and screenwriter. He is known for his work in the horror and science fiction film genres, with such films as '' The Wolf Man'' and '' Donovan's Brain'' (the l ...
and
Ardel Wray
Ardel Wray ( Mockbee; October 28, 1907 – October 14, 1983) was an American screenwriter and story editor, best known for her work on Val Lewton's classic horror films in the 1940s. Her screenplay credits from that era include ''I Walked with ...
to research the practices of
Haitian Vodou
Haitian Vodou is an African diasporic religion that developed in Haiti between the 16th and 19th centuries. It arose through a process of syncretism between several traditional religions of West and Central Africa and Roman Catholicism. There is ...
and use
Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Brontë (, commonly ; 21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855) was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels became classics of English literature.
She enlisted i ...
's ''
Jane Eyre
''Jane Eyre'' ( ; originally published as ''Jane Eyre: An Autobiography'') is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The first ...
'' as a model for the narrative structure, purportedly proclaiming that he wanted to make a "West Indian version of ''Jane Eyre''." Siodmak's initial draft, which was revised significantly by Wray and Lewton, revolved around the wife of a plantation owner who is made into a zombie to prevent her from leaving him and moving to
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
.
Casting
Anna Lee
Anna Lee, MBE (born Joan Boniface Winnifrith; 2 January 1913 – 14 May 2004) was a British actress, labelled by studios "The British Bombshell".
Early life
Anna Lee was born Joan Boniface Winnifrith in Ightham, (pronounced 'Item'), Kent, the ...
was originally slated for the role ultimately played by
Frances Dee
Frances Marion Dee (November 26, 1909 – March 6, 2004) was an American actress. Her first film was the musical ''Playboy of Paris'' (1930). She starred in the film ''An American Tragedy'' (1931). She is also known for starring in the 1943 Va ...
, but had to bow out due to another commitment. Dee received $6,000 for her performance in the film, and
Darby Jones
Darby Jones (February 10, 1910 – November 30, 1986) was an American actor known for his role as the zombie-like Carrefour in the 1943 horror film ''I Walked with a Zombie''. He appeared in a similar role in the 1945 film ''Zombies on Broadway'' ...
was paid, based on his weekly contract salary of $450, $75 a day, totaling $225 for his three days of work.
Filming
Principal photography for the film, which Wray described it as being shot on a "shoestring budget", began October 26, 1942, and wrapped less than a month later, on November 19.
Release
Theatrical distribution
![Commercial](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Commercial._Empress_Theatre_Show_BAnQ_P48S1P08846.jpg)
''I Walked with a Zombie'' had its theatrical premiere on April 8, 1943, in
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...
, which was the hometown of Inez Wallace, the author of the film's source material. It opened in New York City on April 21, before expanding
wide
WIDE or Wide may refer to:
*Wide (cricket)
*Wide and narrow data, terms used to describe two different presentations for tabular data
*WIDE Project, Widely Integrated Distributed Environment
*Wide-angle Infinity Display Equipment
*WIDE-LP, a radio ...
on April 30,
and continued to screen in North American theaters until as late as December 19, when it was at the Rialto in
Casper, Wyoming
Casper is a city in, and the county seat of, Natrona County, Wyoming, United States. Casper is the second-largest city in the state, with the population at 59,038 as of the 2020 census. Only Cheyenne, the state capital, is larger. Casper is nic ...
.
The film was re-released in the United States by RKO in 1956, opening in Los Angeles in July and screening nationwide throughout the fall and into late December.
Home media
The film was released on
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...
by
Warner Home Video
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Inc. (formerly known as Warner Home Video and WCI Home Video and sometimes credited as Warner Home Entertainment) is the home video distribution division of Warner Bros.
It was founded in 1978 as WCI Home Video ...
in 2005 as part of "The Val Lewton Horror Collection", a 9-film box set, on the same disc as ''
The Body Snatcher
"The Body Snatcher" is a short story by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894). First published in ''The Pall Mall Gazette'' in December 1884, its characters were based on criminals in the employ of real-life surgeon Robert K ...
'' (1945).
Reception
Contemporaneous reviews
Initial reception for the film was mixed. While ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' was critical, calling it "a dull, disgusting exaggeration of an unhealthy, abnormal concept of life",
Wanda Hale of the ''
New York Daily News
The New York ''Daily News'', officially titled the ''Daily News'', is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, NJ. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in ta ...
'' awarded it two-and-a-half out of three stars and praised it as a "spine-chilling horror film". Whereas ''
The Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'' felt the film "gets nowhere in the telling and finishes its overdone melodramatics with a most unconvincing climax", a reviewer in
Albany, New York
Albany ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of New York, also the seat and largest city of Albany County. Albany is on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River, and about north of New York City ...
, said it "rigs up a great atmosphere for the haunt and holler audience and, compared with ''Cat People'', the movie with which it is mentioned most often in publicity, it is a success."
Retrospective assessments
On
review aggregator
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...
website
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film has an approval rating of 85% based on 41 reviews, with an average score of 8.1/10; the site's "critics consensus" reads: "Evocative direction by
Jacques Tourneur
Jacques Tourneur (; November 12, 1904 – December 19, 1977) was a French film director known for the classic film noir ''Out of the Past'' and a series of low-budget horror films he made for RKO Studios, including ''Cat People (1942 film), Cat ...
collides with the low-rent production values of exploitateer
Val Lewton
Val Lewton (May 7, 1904 – March 14, 1951) was a Russian-American novelist, film producer and screenwriter best known for a string of low-budget horror films he produced for RKO Pictures in the 1940s. His son, also named Val Lewton, was a pain ...
in ''I Walked with a Zombie'', a sultry sleeper that's simultaneously smarmy, eloquent and fascinating."
Author and film critic
Leonard Maltin
Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic and film historian, as well as an author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives. He is perhaps best known for his book of fil ...
gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars, praising its atmosphere and story and calling it an "Exceptional Val Lewton chiller".
Dennis Schwartz awarded the film an "A" grade, praising the atmosphere, the story, and Tourneur's direction.
TV Guide
TV Guide is an American digital media company that provides television program
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or t ...
awarded the film their highest rating of five out of five stars, calling it "an unqualified horror masterpiece".
Alan Jones of ''
Radio Times
''Radio Times'' (currently styled as ''RadioTimes'') is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio programme schedules, with other features such as interviews, film reviews and lifestyle items. Founded in May 1923 by J ...
'' gave the film four out of five stars, writing: "Jacques Tourneur's direction creates palpable fear and tension in a typically low-key nightmare from the Lewton fright factory. The lighting, shadows, exotic setting and music all contribute to the immensely disturbing atmosphere, making this stunning piece of poetic horror a classic of the genre."
In 2007, ''
Stylus Magazine
''Stylus Magazine'' was an American online music and film magazine, launched in 2002 and co-founded by Todd L. Burns. It featured long-form music journalism, four daily music reviews, movie reviews, podcasts, an MP3 blog, and a text blog.
Addi ...
'' named ''I Walked with a Zombie'' the fifth best
zombie film
A zombie film is a film genre. Zombies are fictional creatures usually portrayed as reanimated corpses or virally infected human beings. They are commonly portrayed as cannibalistic in nature. While zombie films generally fall into the horror g ...
of all time.
In 2021,
Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Apichatpong Weerasethakul ( th, อภิชาติพงศ์ วีระเศรษฐกุล; ; ) is a Thai independent film director, screenwriter, and film producer. Working outside the strict confines of the Thai film studio system, ...
gave the name of Jessica Holland
to the main heroine of ''
Memoria,'' in tribute to Jacques Tourneurs' film ''I Walked with a zombie''
Themes and interpretations
Slavery and racism
Historian and author
Alexander Nemerov asserted that ''I Walked with a Zombie'' uses stillness as a metaphor for slavery "in ways that center on Carre-Four", who, like Ti-Misery, "the slave ship's figurehead, is a static and insentient figure". He wrote that the character personifies a link between slavery and the concept of zombies, citing
anthropologist
An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...
Wade Davis, who said: "Zombis do not speak, cannot fend for themselves, do not even know their names. Their fate is enslavement." Numerov added that Carrefour "suggests the violent subjugation ''and'' the emergent power of blacks" during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, calling the character "a simultaneous portrayal of strength and victimization", and characterized
Darby Jones
Darby Jones (February 10, 1910 – November 30, 1986) was an American actor known for his role as the zombie-like Carrefour in the 1943 horror film ''I Walked with a Zombie''. He appeared in a similar role in the 1945 film ''Zombies on Broadway'' ...
' portrayal as a "monumental
..dominant screen presence" that, in the context of the war and the American
Double V campaign
The Double V campaign was a slogan and drive to promote the fight for democracy in overseas campaigns and at the home front in the United States for African Americans during World War II. The Double V refers to the "V for victory" sign prominen ...
, "equaled the performances of far more famous black actors in the depiction of a charged conceit: the black man standing alone."
Numerov stated that both Carrefour and Ti-Misery "conjure the
lynching
Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an ex ...
of a black man", pointing to the film's final shot, which is of Ti-Misery, as particularly establishing the figurehead as an image reminiscent of lynching. Of the narration in the final scene, which is the only narration in the film not spoken by Betsy, he wrote that the line "pity those who are dead, and wish peace and happiness to the living" is "meant to encompass the white characters
..But the decision to end with the sculpture of Ti Misery and the voice of the black man directs these sentiments back to 'the misery and pain of slavery. As the film was released during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, Nemerov said "the film's final words and image implied a
Willkie Willkie is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Philip Willkie (1919–1974), American banker
*Wendell Willkie (1892–1944), American lawyer and politician; 1940 Republican Party presidential nominee
See also
* Wilkie (surname)
* ...
-style acknowledgement of injustice at home."
Writer Lee Mandelo characterized Ti-Misery as a symbolic representation of "brutality and intense suffering".
He lamented that the film's initial thematic arc, which he wrote made "a few grasps for a more sensitive commentary", was "flipped around to discuss the 'enslavement' of the beautiful white woman, Jessica, who has been either made a zombie or is an up-and-moving catatonic", saying it was "flinch-inducing, as it takes the suffering of the black population of the island and gives it over to a white woman".
Both Nemerov and Mandelo discussed the references in the film to the residents of Saint Sebastian, due to the island's history of slavery, still crying at the births of children and laughing at funerals. Mandelo called this "a cultural tradition that comes from a life without freedom".
Writer Jim Vorel asserted that "Although the setting of the film is a post-slavery island of Saint Sebastian, the film's constant visual motifs of bondage and servitude never allow the viewer to forget the horrors of their not-so-distant past."
Regarding Carrefour, writer Vikram Murthi asserted that "It's not his visage that unsettles, but rather the history beneath his face. It's no wonder that neither the Hollands nor Betsy can hardly bear to stare at him; he reflects the corrosion of their collective soul."
Voodoo
![Houmfort scene in the trailer for I Walked with a Zombie (1943)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Houmfort_scene_in_the_trailer_for_I_Walked_with_a_Zombie_%281943%29.jpg)
Vorel argued that the film approaches the beliefs associated with
African diaspora religions
African diaspora religions are a number of related Pagan beliefs that developed in the Americas in various nations of the Caribbean, Latin America and the Southern United States. They derive from Pagan traditional African religions with some infl ...
, particularly
Haitian Vodou
Haitian Vodou is an African diasporic religion that developed in Haiti between the 16th and 19th centuries. It arose through a process of syncretism between several traditional religions of West and Central Africa and Roman Catholicism. There is ...
, in a more thoughtful manner than earlier films like ''
White Zombie'' (1932).
He wrote that ''I Walked with a Zombie'' "not only depict
them with surprising accuracy and dignity, but consider
how those beliefs could be co-opted by the white man as one more element of control over the lives of the island inhabitants."
Nemerov compared the setting of the ''
houmfort'', with its black attendees and musical performances, to a
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), ...
nightclub and noted the film's depiction of a performance of the Haitian Vodou song "O Legba", provided to the film by
folklorist
Folklore studies, less often known as folkloristics, and occasionally tradition studies or folk life studies in the United Kingdom, is the branch of anthropology devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currenc ...
Leroy Antoine, as evidence of the research conducted by the filmmakers. Additionally, he wrote that when Alma instructs Betsy on how to reach the ''houmfort'', "her description of Carre-Four as a 'god' sounds almost like 'guard,' and the two words combine not only to define his voodoo role, guardian of the crossroads, but also to assert the importance of his triviality: like the doorman at an actual club, he is a guard who holds godlike power."
Haitian Vodou researcher
Laënnec Hurbon
Laënnec Hurbon (sometimes anglicised as Laennec Hurbon; born 1940) is a Haitian sociologist and writer specialising in the relationships between religion, culture and politics in the Caribbean region. He is also a Catholic theologian and ex-pr ...
felt the "director displayed Haitian voodoo as a series of bizarre practices, chief among them the sorcerers' ability to kill people and then reanimate them in a state of living death. The idea flourished."
Notes
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{{DEFAULTSORT:I Walked With A Zombie
1943 horror films
1943 films
American black-and-white films
American supernatural horror films
American zombie films
1940s English-language films
Films scored by Roy Webb
Films about Voodoo
Films based on Jane Eyre
Films based on newspaper and magazine articles
Films directed by Jacques Tourneur
Films produced by Val Lewton
Films set in the Caribbean
RKO Pictures films
Films with screenplays by Curt Siodmak
1940s American films