2. I Walked With A Zombie (1943)
Essentially a creepy extrapolation on Jane Eyre, this moody, shadow-drenched drama was the second partnership of producer Val Lewton and director Jacques Tourneur, following their subtle masterpiece The Cat People. Lewton, infamous for grabbing a sensational title and then making a film that often bore little resemblance to it, rejected the American Weekly article RKO Studios wanted him to base the film on, and pointed his writers towards Bronte and Haitian voodoo rituals. The result is one of the most underappreciated classics of the horror cannon, and unique because its also the spookiest zombie film (sorry White Zombie, its true) prior to Romero revolutionizing the term. No brain-eating, infectious bites or dropping limbs here. Instead, this Zombie comes complete with the arcane accoutrements one associates with both Victorian gothic novels and Caribbean voodoo practices; mist-shrouded forests paths, tribal drums, burning torches and flickering lamp-light are lashed together with heaping doses of Charlotte Brontes feverish dark romance. As good as the film itself is it is overshadowed by the pivotal, iconic centerpieceFrances Dees Betty taking a long, sinister walk with her possibly deceased charge through tall sugar cane reeds. This is not the kind of zombie movie youre most familiar with, but its still a handsomely mounted, haunting throwback to the concepts roots and a worthwhile ride for any true horror fan.