Lewton and Ulmer


I Walked with a Zombie

Great DVD news has arrived this week for fans of elegant horror: Universal have announced a Bela Lugosi collection for September that will finally offer Edgar G. Ulmer’s expressionist/art deco masterpiece, The Black Cat (1934), and Warner have solidified an October street date for their long-awaited Val Lewton collection. The Lewton set will contain five discs and nine films, including the three classics Jacques Tourneur directed (1942’s Cat People and 1943’s I Walked with a Zombie and The Leopard Man) as well as Mark Robson’s masterpiece, The Seventh Victim (1943), which critic Jonathan Rosenbaum recently called his “favorite horror film.”

I commented on The Black Cat and Tourneur, as well as other prized horror films, here.

All of the Lewton films will contain commentaries and the boxset will include a documentary entitled Shadows in the Dark: The Val Lewton Legacy. Unfortunately, Warner doesn’t seem to have tapped critic Chris Fujiwara for a commentary, who would’ve been an ideal choice.