Daily poster: I Walked with a Zombie.

I Walked with a Zombie.
I've been making my way the Val Lewton RKO films. They are a quirky handful of films. I don't use the word "quirky" lightly. They are advertised as horror films. Grab a book on horror films and you will see stills from these films. The dead dog in the tree from I Walked with a Zombie is in practically every horror book ever written.These are not horror films. They are something other. Suspense films with a supernatural element. But even the supernatural element can be debated. The films cleverly disguise the truth, and refuse to positively identify their universe as a supernatural one.
The films are clever. The stories are original and you cannot leave the room. They are not scary but they are smart and interesting. I Walked with a Zombie has passionate, stirring, music, mixed with some noirish lighting and shots. The whole thing could be a mess if it had not been handled so deftly.
A nurse comes to the Carribbean island of Saint Sebastian in order to care for a woman who is neither living nor dead. She discovers that many of the locals are part of a voodoo cult. Do they hold the answers to her patient's condition?
There are twists and turns and a bug eyed, creepy looking gentleman.The end is really cool.

Daily poster: Isle of the Dead.

 

Isle of the Dead.
I don't know what the critical consensus is on the films of Val Lewton. I'm making my way through them now.
A mish-mash group is trapped on a Greek Island during the war of 1912. Someone dies of the plague. Some are convinced that they must be quarantined for health concerns. Others are convinced a woman among them is a demonic vorvolaka.
The film is a slow whodunit, what is it? kind of a thing.
Good enough but slow. I Walked With a Zombie is next on the plate.