MONSTROUS QUESTION OF THE MONTH – # 3 – Michael Arruda
(Monstrous Question of the Month provided by Michael Arruda)
THE MONSTROUS QUESTION OF THE MONTH – JULY
Excluding JAWS, what is your pick for the ultimate summer horror movie?
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RESPONSE #3 - MICHAEL ARRUDA:
I’m going to turn back the clock quite a bit and go with I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE (1943).
I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE is one of my all-time favorite genre films, and it’s my pick for the ultimate summer horror movie because it’s so steeped in humid Caribbean atmosphere it drips sweat onto the living room floor. It’s one of those movies best viewed on a hot summer night with the windows open, crickets chirping, and a warm breeze rippling through the curtains.
It’s the story of a nurse (Frances Dee, in a beautiful and sexy performance) sent to a Caribbean island to care for a comatose woman who may or may not be a zombie. While there, she falls for the woman’s husband (Tom Conway). She also befriends his alcoholic brother (James Ellison) and learns some very unsettling family secrets along the way. My favorite part of I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE is the way it handles the zombie subject. Do zombies exist? Is the wife a zombie? For every scene that intimates she is a zombie, there’s another scene which supplies evidence that she’s not. So, which one is it? Gotta see the movie to find out.
I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE was the subject of my very first IN THE SPOOKLIGHT column back in 2000, and I had this to say then why it’s the perfect summer movie:
“The film’s atmosphere is mesmerizing, nearly hypnotic. The scene where Frances Dee takes the wife to the old fort where the locals practice voodoo, is so well done, so compellingly beautiful and spooky, you will swear you feel the warm night air on your face and arms as the two women make their trek through the fields to the zombie-like guard who may or may not grant them permission to pass.”
I absolutely love this scene. Each time I watch it, I can feel the humidity forming beads of sweat on my brow, I can smell the sultry air of the Caribbean evening, and I can feel Frances Dee’s fear as she walks through the sugar cane fields on her way to an uncertain and unknown fate, into a world where voodoo and zombies reign.
I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE was produced by Val Lewton and directed by Jacques Tourneur, the same team that made the original CAT PEOPLE (1942). It remains one of the most subtle yet satisfying horror movies ever made. See it this summer!
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