Val Lewton Horror Collection (DVD)

Warner Home Video offers a treat for cultivated horror tastes with The Val Lewton Horror Collection, boxing together nine of the producer’s classics and the documentary Shadows In The Dark — promising “10 times the terror!”.

Though his career was cut short by a combination of Hollywood politics and ill health, Lewton’s distinctive body of work builds a strong case for the producer as auteur. The RKO B-movies produced by Val Lewton during the 1940s conjure up a mood of intangible dread and this is a golden opportunity to get several of his best films all at once.

The Collection’s most-known mainstream film is probably 1942’s Cat People, directed by Jacques Tourneur.

“She was marked with the curse of those who slink and court and kill by night!” proclaimed the poster for Cat People. Meet Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon), a beautiful and mysterious Serbian-born fashion artist living in New York City. After he gives her a Siamese kitten who hates her, Irena falls in love with and marries an average-Joe American. The conflicted cat-woman is afraid that arousing her marital passions will wake the panther within her, so her husband sends her to a very tasty psychiatrist. This haunting black-and-white film preys purely on the imagination, eschewing lurid transformation scenes. This movie was one of the first to feature the “Lewton bus” — a scene in which a bus obscures the viewer from seeing certain scary goings-on. Commentary by film scholar Greg Mank. Quotes from star Simone Simon.

The very nicely presented boxed set also has:

Bedlam (1946) — About the notorious, real-life St. Mary’s of Bethlehem Asylum (aka, Bedlam). Commentary by film scholar Tom Weaver.

Body Snatcher, The (1945) — Boris Karloff stars as a grave-robber. Based on a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson, this period piece is a strange and surreal excursion into the heard of darkness. Commentary by film scholar Steve Haberman. Quotes from director Robert Wise.

Curse of the Cat People (1944) — Not a true sequel, and certainly not scary, Curse of the Cat People is still an interesting and engaging ghost story permeated with a real sense of wonder and magic from a child’s point of view. Commentary by film scholar Greg Mank.

Ghost Ship, The (1943) — An offbeat tale that takes place aboard a sprawling ship that’s been the site of several mysterious deaths.

I Walked with a Zombie (1943) — An interesting look at West Indies voodoo and a surprisingly realistic look at how zombies are made and used. Commentary by Kim Newman and Steve Jones.

Isle of the Dead (1945) — Boris Karloff stars in this chiller about plague and vampirism.

Leopard Man, The (1943) — Not a mutant transformation movie, but something more along the lines of Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Leopard Man follows the simultaneous events of a leopard escaping its cage and a madman on the loose in New Mexico. Commentary by Exorcist director William Friedkin.

Seventh Victim, The (1943) — A Greenwich Village cult of devil worshippers might be responsible for the disappearance of a young woman. Downbeat and dark, this is a little-seen Lewton movie that actually deserves more play. Commentary by film scholar Steve Haberman.

Shadows in the Dark — A featurette which has comments from modern-day horror directors like John Landis and George A. Romero on Lewton, plus outlines Lewton’s career from his apprenticeship under David O. Selznick during his Gone With The Wind days to his untimely death.

This Val Lewton collection, so nicely boxed and presented, is a must-have for any fan of classic horror.

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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson