Joaquim da Silva Fontes, Significação e Estabilidade do Género no ...

Figure 30. The Mummy
In 1942, Russian-born Val Lewton was named head of the B-horror feature unit at
RKO and the initial idea of the studio was to compete with Universal’s horror productions.
This kind of feature obviously meant some very tight budgets (normally under $150,000
per film), and would normally last less than seventy-five minutes, but they would provide
Lewton with the sort of freedom and creativity that he needed to come up with several
great cinematographic successes. His first production was Cat People (1942), directed by
Jacques Tourneur, a supernatural story about a young Serbian woman, Irena Dubrovna
(Simone Simon), who meets an American, Oliver Reed (Kent Smith), by the panther cage
at the Central Park Zoo. The film obviously uses Expressionist techniques to approach the
treacherous subject of dangerous female sexuality, and it is fair to say that, along with The
Curse of Cat People (a sequel also produced by Lewton and released in 1944), it made a
significant development in the horror movie genre. Not just for using inventive formal
devices but also for exploring the intricate subject of the human psyche.
The following year, Val Lewton also produced another film directed by Tourneur, I
Walked with a Zombie. Loosely based upon Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre with the setting
reversed from England to Haiti, the film tells the story of Canadian nurse Betsy Connell
(Frances Dee) who travels to the West Indies to look after sugar plantation owner Paul
Holland (Tom Conway)’s wife, Jessica Holland (Christine Gordon), who suffers from head
trauma. As she takes care of the lady, Betsy comes to believe that her situation is due to
voodoo curses and rites. The film also touches upon the supernatural, which often makes it
difficult at times to understand some of the elements / events of the plot, or why they occur
in that particular time and place. I believe, however, that the film’s subject matter of
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