I Walked With A Zombie (1943) - Jacques Tourneur

It feels almost like a disservice to classify Jacques Tourneur's I Walked With A Zombie'as merely, a horror film.  From it's tragic story to the mysterious tone pumping through every frame of I Walked With A Zombie, this film completely transcends the horror genre, almost as if it's creating its own brand of gothic atmosphere.  While I Walked With A Zombie certainly has its fair share of horror elements, this is not a particularly scary film in the traditional sense.   What makes this film so compelling is its creepy tone, with Tourneur injecting the film with great gothic atmosphere that makes the whole film wallow in an overwhelming sense of dread.   This is to be expected from a Val Lewton / Jacques Tourneur collaboration, with the film delivering beautiful black and white cinematography from start to finish, eliciting a sense of danger and uncertainty.  I Walked With A Zombie also presents a very complex picture of human relationships, exploring how perception, not fact, can influence a person's decision making.   At its heart, I Walked With A Zombie is a tragedy of how personal brooding and contorted emotion can destroy the the individual. and I really enjoyed the complexity of the narrative, frequently giving the viewer multiple explanations for events portrayed in the film, with no definitive answers.

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