Justin here. In the spirit of Halloween, I'll be taking a look at some of my favorite scary movies this month. The subject today is the films of Val Lewton.
Val Lewton was a movie producer who was tasked by RKO to make b-movies specifically to compete with Universal's monster movies. The big problem was that Lewton was not given the big budget that those movies had. What he did have however was some major talent – most of the crew that worked on Citizen Kane and the amazing directors, Jacques Tourner and Robert Wise.
Where the Universal monster movies had the makeup budget to make awesome looking monsters to fill the screen, Lewton had to rely on shadows, decpetion, and insinuation to get his scares. The movies are approached with the careful lens of film noir. With RKO, Lewton produced 9 of the best horror movies ever made. In 2005 Warner Brothers reissued the movies as double feature discs in a fantastic box set. Here's a quick run down of the movies.
Cat People & Curse of the Cat People
Cat People is the most famous of the movies. On the surface it concerns a young ship builder who falls in love with a mysterious European immigrant. She is afraid to give herself completely to him for fear that she may become a fierce feline and kill him. Where the movie really shines is it's exploration of Christian guilt with regard to sexuality. Pretty revolutionary for a movie that was released in 1943. The performances are all great, but the recently departed Simone Simon really shines as sultry cat person.
Cat People was such a smash that Lewton was pressured into doing a sequel, Curse of the Cat People. The story picks up several years later as the ship builder from the original has a family and a daughter who is having some severe issues involving imaginary friends. The movie is populated with engaging characters including a Jamaican domestic, and a fading actress with mental issues. The movie has very little do with the original, and it is less of a horror movie than an earnest melodrama. The child actor who plays the daughter in this is fantastic though walking the line between precocious and saccharine. The moments where she is in peril are genuinely suspenseful.
I Walked with a Zombie & The Body Snatcher
This isn't about the kind of zombies that are in George Romero movies, but rather the somnambulist type from Haitian voodoo. Like Cat People, this is a movie that is deceptively simple on the surface but tackles some pretty big themes underneath. Frances Dee plays a nurse tasked with taking care of the comatose wife of a plantation owner. Quickly she realizes the desperation of the situation and becomes embroiled with the locals' old time religion. Meanwhile the viewer ponders the effect of colonialism on fragile native cultures and the nature of western medicine that treats the body and alternative medicine that strives to treat the soul. The movie is chilling and entertaining. It's probably my favorite of the bunch.
The Body Snatcher is an adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson classic about two grave robbers that steal cadavers for use in medical science. What makes this movie remarkable is that it pairs Boris Karloff AND Bela Lugosi together. The story is great and well shot, but watching the two old masters work together and off each other is what makes this worth watching.
Isle of the Dead & Bedlam
Boris Karloff also stars in both of these. In Isle of the Dead director Mark Robson spins the tale of an army general who visits a Greek island to investigate some strange goings on. On the island it is suspected that there is a vampiric demon, the vorvolaka around. Aside from the possible demon, there is the terrifying threat of live burial to contend with as one of the tourists on the island has a medical condition where she becomes unresponsive and exhibits the signs of death while still living. Karloff gives the performance of his career here building a complex character who can be equally reviled and respected. The players of the movie form a kind of danse macabre as all walks of life are represented to some extent as they confront their inevitable doom.
Bedlam is pretty far from a conventional horror movie. It is however an unflinching look at the horrors of institutionalized mental health care in the 18th century. It's a solid if somewhat unremarkable period piece about patients rights and how government deals with problems it doesn't understand. There are some nail-biting scenes of escape attempts and some of the inmates are pretty scary. Karloff plays the evil warden in this one and again does a fantastic job. He was an actor that was unfortunately very underrated in his time.
The Leopard Man & The Ghost Ship
A more appropriate name for The Leopard Man would be The Man Who Owns the Leopard. Of course the title is meant to capitalize on the success of Cat People. It in facet, concerns itself with an escaped leopard that may or may not be terrorizing a small Mexican villiage. The movie again is very concerned with white encroachment on native cultures. But along with that we get a really entertaining mystery and a few genuinely blood chilling murder scenes. There is one that happens off camera that involves a door and blood that is unshakable. Tourneur directs the hell out of this one using shadow and sound to whip the tension up to a fever. You'll never hear castanets the same way again.
The Ghost Ship again is a deceptive title. There are no ghosts involved at all. Rather this is about an enterprising young ship hand who has to deal with a corrupt and possibly insane captain. It's a quiet and surprisingly effective thriller set within a world that gets very little coverage these days. It's thoroughly fascinating and worthy of a watch.
The 7th Victim & Shadows in the Dark: The Val Lewton Legacy
I haven't actually watched the 7th Victim yet. I bought this set used about a year ago and have purposely held off watching this. It's considered a favorite by Lewton aficionados. All I know is that it concerns a satanic cult in Greenwich Village. I will be watching this in short order now that it's the appropriate time of year again. I wanted to save me some top shelf Lewton for the perfect occasion.
Shadows in the Dark is a really well done documentary about Lewton. There's not much that I need to say about it other than that I was surprised and unsurprised at the same time that the commentators on this are practically all my favorite filmmakers and writers.
The films of Val Lewton have my highest recommendation. They are great fun, important, and manage to remain spooky 66 plus years after they came out.