I Walked with a Zombie 4K 1943 Ultra HD 2160p

A young nurse from Canada is hired to nurse the wife of a wealthy planter on an island in the West Indies, where his family once brought black slaves practicing a voodoo cult. The planter's wife is considered crazy, at night she wanders like a somnambulist with her eyes open, and one day the voodooists, who conduct their strange rituals in a home-grown temple, pierce the planter's hand with a sword in front of an impressionable nurse. But the wound does not bleed, and the woman does not even feel pain, and only later the nurse learns that she has long been dead.

User Review
Betsy Connell (Frances Dee) is a Canadian nurse hired to come to the Caribbean island of St. Sebastian, to work at Fort Holland. There she will attend to the needs of the mute, unresponsive, yet seemingly alive Jessica Holland (Christine Gordon). Jessica is wife to a plantation owner named Paul Holland (Tom Conway), with whom Betsy falls in love. Betsy becomes determined to do the right thing by Paul by trying to cure her, if she can. That includes immersing herself in the local voodoo culture.

There may be modern horror fans who bemoan the lack of what one might consider horror in "I Walked with a Zombie". It starts to go for more of a traditional creep factor in its second half, using the imposing Darby Jones as the mysterious, zombified Carrefour to great effect. Everything is handled with a great deal of sensitivity and authenticity by screenwriters Curt Siodmak & Ardel Wray, producer Val Lewton, and director Jacques Tourneur. Unlike some of the horror product of the time, it actually treats its black characters with a great deal of dignity and respect, and also gives the actors a chance to shine, such as Theresa Harris as Alma the maid.

As was always the case with these Lewton productions, the story (based to some degree on Jane Eyre, with factual articles on voodoo in the West Endies also used as a basis) is pretty tight, and the running time is typically short. (69 minutes all told.) We don't get to know the characters all that well, but we do still like them, and in a refreshing touch, there are no clear cut villains or explanations for the strange events. The actors each do a solid job: Dee as the heroine, Conway as the husband, James Ellison as his half brother, Edith Barrett (in old age make-up) as their mother, James Bell as the doctor, and Sir Lancelot as the calypso singer. As one can see, some of the cast were regulars in these Lewton films.

Overall, there's a real feeling of sadness to the atmosphere, helping to make this one of the best of Lewtons' filmography. One wouldn't know from the end result how quickly and cheaply these productions were made, as they have the power to grip their viewers 70 plus years later.

Info Video

Codec: HEVC / H.265 (83.7 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1

Info Audio

#English: FLAC 1.0
#English: Dolby Digital 1.0 Commentary with authors Kim Newman and Stephen Jones

Info Subtitles

English SDH.