''I Walked with a Zombie'' is a 1943 American
horror film
Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit physical or psychological fear in its viewers. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with Transgressive art, transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements of the genre include Mo ...
directed by
Jacques Tourneur and produced by
Val Lewton for
RKO Pictures
RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, is an American film production and distribution company, historically one of the major film studios, "Big Five" film studios of Cinema of the United States, Hollywood's Clas ...
. It stars
James Ellison,
Frances Dee, and
Tom Conway, and follows a Canadian nurse who travels to care for the ailing wife of a sugar
plantation
Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...
owner in the
Caribbean
The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...
, where she witnesses
Vodou rituals and possibly encounters
the walking dead. The screenplay, written by
Curt Siodmak and
Ardel Wray, is based on an article of the same title by
Inez Wallace, and also partly reinterprets the narrative of the 1847 novel ''
Jane Eyre
''Jane Eyre'' ( ; originally published as ''Jane Eyre: An Autobiography'') is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The firs ...
'' by
Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Nicholls (; 21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855), commonly known as Charlotte Brontë (, commonly ), was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë family, Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novel ...
.
The film premiered in New York City on April 21, 1943, before receiving a wider theatrical release later that month. It has been analyzed for its themes of slavery and racism, and for its depiction of beliefs associated with
African diaspora religions
African diaspora religions, also described as Afro-American religions, are a number of related beliefs that developed in the Americas in various areas of the Caribbean, Latin America, and the Southern United States. They derive from traditional ...
, particularly
Haitian Vodou
Haitian Vodou () is an African diasporic religions, African diasporic religion that developed in Haiti between the 16th and 19th centuries. It arose through a process of syncretism between several traditional religions of West Africa, West and ...
. Though it received mixed reviews upon its release, retrospective assessments of the film have been more positive.
Plot
On a snowy
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...
day, young nurse Betsy Connell is interviewed to care for the wife of Paul Holland, a
sugar plantation owner on Saint Sebastian, a
Caribbean
The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...
island. Although she is told little about the patient, Betsy looks forward to the warmer climate and accepts the job, laughing it off when asked if she believes in witchcraft.
The coachman who takes Betsy to Paul's house, Fort Holland, tells her Saint Sebastian's
Afro-Caribbean
Afro-Caribbean or African Caribbean people are Caribbean people who trace their full or partial ancestry to Sub-Saharan Africa. The majority of the modern Afro-Caribbean people descend from the Indigenous peoples of Africa, Africans (primarily fr ...
population is descended from slaves brought by Paul's ancestors. At her first dinner, Betsy meets Paul's younger half-brother and employee, Wesley Rand, who, though good-humored, clearly resents Paul. She encounters Jessica, her patient, wandering the grounds that night, and is initially frightened by the nonverbal, affectless woman, who, as Dr. Maxwell later informs Betsy, was left without the willpower to speak or act by herself after a
tropical fever irreparably damaged her
spinal cord
The spinal cord is a long, thin, tubular structure made up of nervous tissue that extends from the medulla oblongata in the lower brainstem to the lumbar region of the vertebral column (backbone) of vertebrate animals. The center of the spinal c ...
.
Betsy learns from a
calypso musician's song that Paul kept Jessica from running away with Wesley right before she became sick. The issues surrounding Jessica have driven Wesley to drink, and the simmering tension between him and Paul frequently threatens to boil over. Paul apologizes to Betsy for bringing her to Saint Sebastian and admits he feels responsible for Jessica's condition. Betsy, who has fallen in love with Paul, becomes determined to make him happy by curing Jessica and gets him to agree to a risky
insulin shock treatment. When that fails, Alma, Paul's maid, convinces Betsy to take Jessica to be healed by the ''
houngan'' (
Vodou priest) at the ''
houmfort'' (Vodou temple).
After a man dressed in black performs a ritual dance using a small sword, Betsy gets in line at the ''houmfort'' to ask the
spirit Damballa to heal Jessica. Instead, she is pulled inside a hut and is shocked to see Mrs. Rand, Paul and Wesley's mother, who works with Maxwell. Mrs. Rand reveals that, with the ''houngan''s knowledge, she has been telling the islanders that Vodou spirits speak through her so they will comply with her medical and sanitary recommendations. Meanwhile, Jessica attracts the attention of the man in black, who stabs her in the arm. She does not bleed, causing murmurs of "zombie" among the onlookers, and Mrs. Rand tells Betsy to take Jessica home. An upset Paul greets them, but he softens when he learns Betsy was trying to help him, and lets her know he no longer loves his wife.
The Voudou congregation demands Jessica be delivered to them for further ritualistic tests, so Maxwell and local authorities want her sent to an
asylum on a different island. Paul resists because Wesley wants Jessica to stay, and he tells Betsy to return to Canada before he makes her as unhappy as he made Jessica before her illness. At night, Carrefour, a zombie who guards a crossroads, is sent to retrieve Jessica, approaching Betsy instead after she puts on Jessica's robe, but Mrs. Rand orders him to leave.
Maxwell visits to report there will be an official investigation to determine Jessica's fate. Faced with scandal, and with her sons at each other's throats, Mrs. Rand says Jessica is not sick or insane, but dead, as she went to the ''houmfort'' the night Jessica tried to run away with Wesley and,
possessed, asked the ''houngan'' to make Jessica a zombie. Only Wesley believes the story, and he later asks Betsy to
euthanize Jessica, though Betsy refuses.
Using a
small effigy of Jessica, the man in black and the ''houngan'' attempt to draw her to the ''houmfort''. Paul and Betsy stop her the first time, but Wesley helps her the second, following with an arrow removed from a garden statue depicting
Saint Sebastian
Sebastian (; ) was an early Christianity, Christian saint and martyr. According to traditional belief, he was killed during the Diocletianic Persecution of Christians. He was initially tied to a post or tree and shot with arrows, though this d ...
, "Ti-Misery", that was once the
figurehead
In politics, a figurehead is a practice of who ''de jure'' (in name or by law) appears to hold an important and often supremely powerful title or office, yet '' de facto'' (in reality) exercises little to no actual power. This usually means that ...
of a Holland-family
slave ship
Slave ships were large cargo ships specially built or converted from the 17th to the 19th century for transporting Slavery, slaves. Such ships were also known as "Guineamen" because the trade involved human trafficking to and from the Guinea ( ...
. The man in black stabs the doll with a pin to mirror Wesley stabbing Jessica with the arrow, who is pursued slowly by Carrefour as he carries her body into the sea. Jessica and Wesley are discovered floating in the surf; their bodies are brought back to Fort Holland. A voice-over condemns Jessica as an evil woman who led Paul astray, but asks God's forgiveness for the dead, Ti-Misery looming in the background. Betsy and Paul console each other.
Cast
Production
Development
RKO executives, rather than producer
Val Lewton, chose the film's title, which was taken from an article of the same name written by
Inez Wallace for ''
American Weekly Magazine''. Whereas the article detailed Wallace's experience meeting "zombies", by which she meant, not the literal living dead, but rather people she encountered working on a
plantation
Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...
in
Haiti
Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...
whose vocal cords and cognitive abilities had been impaired by drug use, rendering them obedient servants who understood and followed simple orders, Lewton asked screenwriters
Curt Siodmak and
Ardel Wray to research the practices of
Haitian Vodou
Haitian Vodou () is an African diasporic religions, African diasporic religion that developed in Haiti between the 16th and 19th centuries. It arose through a process of syncretism between several traditional religions of West Africa, West and ...
and use
Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Nicholls (; 21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855), commonly known as Charlotte Brontë (, commonly ), was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë family, Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novel ...
's ''
Jane Eyre
''Jane Eyre'' ( ; originally published as ''Jane Eyre: An Autobiography'') is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The firs ...
'' as a model for the narrative structure, purportedly proclaiming that he wanted to make a "West Indian version of ''Jane Eyre''." Siodmak's initial draft, which was revised significantly by Wray and Lewton, revolved around the wife of a plantation owner who is made into a zombie to prevent her from leaving him and moving to
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
.
Casting
Anna Lee was originally slated for the role ultimately played by
Frances Dee, but had to bow out due to another commitment. Dee received $6,000 for her performance in the film, and
Darby Jones was paid, based on his weekly contract salary of $450, $75 a day, totaling $225 for his three days of work.
Filming
Principal photography for the film, which Wray described it as being shot on a "shoestring budget", began October 26, 1942, and wrapped less than a month later, on November 19.
Release
Theatrical distribution

''I Walked with a Zombie'' had its theatrical premiere on April 8, 1943, in
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–United States border, Canada–U.S. maritime border ...
, which was the hometown of Inez Wallace, the author of the film's source material. It opened in New York City on April 21, before expanding
wide on April 30,
and continued to screen in North American theaters until as late as December 19, when it was at the Rialto in
Casper, Wyoming
Casper is a city in and the county seat of Natrona County, Wyoming, United States. Casper is the List of municipalities in Wyoming, second-most populous city in the state after Cheyenne, Wyoming, Cheyenne, with the population at 59,038 as of th ...
.
The film was re-released in the United States by RKO in 1956, opening in Los Angeles in July and screening nationwide throughout the fall and into late December.
Home media
The film was released on
DVD by
Warner Home Video
Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment, Inc. (doing business as Warner Bros. Home Entertainment; formerly known as Warner Home Video and WCI Home Video and sometimes credited as Warner Home Entertainment) is the American home video distribution ...
in 2005 as part of "The Val Lewton Horror Collection", a 9-film box set, on the same disc as ''
The Body Snatcher
"The Body Snatcher" is a short story by the Scottish people, Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. First published in ''The Pall Mall Gazette'' in December 1884, its characters were based on criminals in the employ of the surgeon Robert Knox ...
'' (1945).
In 2024,
The Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home video, home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films". A "sister company" of art film, arth ...
announced a
4K/
Blu-ray
Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...
release of the film as part of the double feature set, ''I Walked with a Zombie /
The Seventh Victim: Produced by Val Lewton''.
Reception
Contemporaneous reviews
Initial reception for the film was mixed. While ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' was critical, calling it "a dull, disgusting exaggeration of an unhealthy, abnormal concept of life",
Wanda Hale of the ''
New York Daily News
The ''Daily News'' is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, New Jersey. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson in New York City as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in Tabloid (newspaper format ...
'' awarded it two-and-a-half out of three stars and praised it as a "spine-chilling horror film". Whereas ''
The Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe,'' also known locally as ''the Globe'', is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Boston Globe'' is the oldest and largest daily new ...
'' felt the film "gets nowhere in the telling and finishes its overdone melodramatics with a most unconvincing climax", a reviewer in
Albany, New York
Albany ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It is located on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River. Albany is the oldes ...
, said it "rigs up a great atmosphere for the haunt and holler audience and, compared with ''
Cat People'', the movie with which it is mentioned most often in publicity, it is a success."
Retrospective assessments
On
review aggregator
A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...
website
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...
, the film has an approval rating of 85% based on 41 reviews, with an average score of 8.1/10; the site's "critics consensus" reads: "Evocative direction by
Jacques Tourneur collides with the low-rent production values of exploitateer
Val Lewton in ''I Walked with a Zombie'', a sultry sleeper that's simultaneously smarmy, eloquent and fascinating."
Author and film critic
Leonard Maltin
Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic, film historian, and author. He is known for his book of film capsule reviews, '' Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide'', published from 1969 to 2014. Maltin was the film criti ...
gave the film three-and-a-half out of four stars, praising its atmosphere and story and calling it an "Exceptional Val Lewton chiller".
Dennis Schwartz awarded the film an "A" grade, praising the atmosphere, the story, and Tourneur's direction.
TV Guide
TV Guide is an American digital media
In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, vi ...
awarded the film their highest rating of five out of five stars, calling it "an unqualified horror masterpiece".
Alan Jones of ''
Radio Times
''Radio Times'' is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio programme schedules, with other features such as interviews, film reviews and lifestyle items. Founded in September 1923 by John Reith, then general manage ...
'' gave the film four out of five stars, writing: "Jacques Tourneur's direction creates palpable fear and tension in a typically low-key nightmare from the Lewton fright factory. The lighting, shadows, exotic setting and music all contribute to the immensely disturbing atmosphere, making this stunning piece of poetic horror a classic of the genre."
In 2007, ''
Stylus Magazine
''Stylus Magazine'' was an American online music and film magazine, launched in 2002 and co-founded by Todd L. Burns. It featured long-form music journalism, four daily music reviews, movie reviews, podcasts, an MP3 blog, and a text blog.
Addi ...
'' named ''I Walked with a Zombie'' the fifth best
zombie film of all time.
In 2021,
Apichatpong Weerasethakul gave the name of Jessica Holland to the main heroine of ''
Memoria
Memoria was the term for aspects involving memory in Western classical rhetoric. The word is Latin, and can be translated as "memory".
It was one of five canons in classical rhetoric (the others being inventio, dispositio, elocutio, and pronun ...
'', in tribute to ''I Walked with a Zombie''.
Themes and interpretations
Slavery and racism
Historian and author
Alexander Nemerov asserted that ''I Walked with a Zombie'' uses stillness as a metaphor for slavery "in ways that center on Carre-Four", who, like Ti-Misery, "the slave ship's figurehead, is a static and insentient figure". He wrote that the character personifies a link between slavery and the concept of zombies, citing
anthropologist
An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...
Wade Davis, who said: "Zombis do not speak, cannot fend for themselves, do not even know their names. Their fate is enslavement." Numerov added that Carrefour "suggests the violent subjugation ''and'' the emergent power of blacks" during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, calling the character "a simultaneous portrayal of strength and victimization", and characterized
Darby Jones' portrayal as a "monumental
..dominant screen presence" that, in the context of the war and the American
Double V campaign, "equaled the performances of far more famous black actors in the depiction of a charged conceit: the black man standing alone."
Numerov stated that both Carrefour and Ti-Misery "conjure the
lynching
Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged or convicted transgressor or to intimidate others. It can also be an extreme form of i ...
of a black man", pointing to the film's final shot, which is of Ti-Misery, as particularly establishing the figurehead as an image reminiscent of lynching. Of the narration in the final scene, which is the only narration in the film not spoken by Betsy, he wrote that the line "pity those who are dead, and wish peace and happiness to the living" is "meant to encompass the white characters
..But the decision to end with the sculpture of Ti Misery and the voice of the black man directs these sentiments back to 'the misery and pain of slavery. As the film was released during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, Nemerov said "the film's final words and image implied a
Willkie-style acknowledgement of injustice at home."
Writer Lee Mandelo characterized Ti-Misery as a symbolic representation of "brutality and intense suffering".
He lamented that the film's initial thematic arc, which he wrote made "a few grasps for a more sensitive commentary", was "flipped around to discuss the 'enslavement' of the beautiful white woman, Jessica, who has been either made a zombie or is an up-and-moving catatonic", saying it was "flinch-inducing, as it takes the suffering of the black population of the island and gives it over to a white woman".
Both Nemerov and Mandelo discussed the references in the film to the residents of Saint Sebastian, due to the island's history of slavery, still crying at the births of children and laughing at funerals. Mandelo called this "a cultural tradition that comes from a life without freedom".
Writer Jim Vorel asserted that "Although the setting of the film is a post-slavery island of Saint Sebastian, the film's constant visual motifs of bondage and servitude never allow the viewer to forget the horrors of their not-so-distant past."
Regarding Carrefour, writer Vikram Murthi asserted that "It's not his visage that unsettles, but rather the history beneath his face. It's no wonder that neither the Hollands nor Betsy can hardly bear to stare at him; he reflects the corrosion of their collective soul."
Voodoo
Vorel argued that the film approaches the beliefs associated with
African diaspora religions
African diaspora religions, also described as Afro-American religions, are a number of related beliefs that developed in the Americas in various areas of the Caribbean, Latin America, and the Southern United States. They derive from traditional ...
, particularly
Haitian Vodou
Haitian Vodou () is an African diasporic religions, African diasporic religion that developed in Haiti between the 16th and 19th centuries. It arose through a process of syncretism between several traditional religions of West Africa, West and ...
, in a more thoughtful manner than earlier films like ''
White Zombie'' (1932).
He wrote that ''I Walked with a Zombie'' "not only depict
them with surprising accuracy and dignity, but consider
how those beliefs could be co-opted by the white man as one more element of control over the lives of the island inhabitants."
Nemerov compared the setting of the ''
houmfort'', with its black attendees and musical performances, to a
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater ...
nightclub and noted the film's depiction of a performance of the Haitian Vodou song "O Legba", provided to the film by
folklorist
Folklore studies (also known as folkloristics, tradition studies or folk life studies in the UK) is the academic discipline devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currency in the 1950s to distinguish the ac ...
Leroy Antoine, as evidence of the research conducted by the filmmakers. Additionally, he wrote that when Alma instructs Betsy on how to reach the ''houmfort'', "her description of Carre-Four as a 'god' sounds almost like 'guard,' and the two words combine not only to define his voodoo role, guardian of the crossroads, but also to assert the importance of his triviality: like the doorman at an actual club, he is a guard who holds godlike power."
Haitian Vodou researcher
Laënnec Hurbon felt the "director displayed Haitian voodoo as a series of bizarre practices, chief among them the sorcerers' ability to kill people and then reanimate them in a state of living death. The idea flourished."
See also
*
List of cult films
Notes
References
Bibliography
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External links
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''I Walked with a Zombie'' at AllMovie*
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{{DEFAULTSORT:I Walked With A Zombie
1940s American films
1940s English-language films
1943 horror films
1943 films
American black-and-white films
American supernatural horror films
American zombie films
Films about euthanasia
Films about nurses
Films about Voodoo
Films based on Jane Eyre
Films based on newspaper and magazine articles
Films directed by Jacques Tourneur
Films produced by Val Lewton
Films scored by Roy Webb
Films set in Ottawa
Films set in the Caribbean
Films set on fictional islands
Films with screenplays by Curt Siodmak
RKO Pictures films
English-language horror films