The Criterion Collection Announces Its October Release Slate • Top Lined By Produced By Val Lewton On 4K Ultra HD Oct. 08 (I Walked With A Zombie, The Seventh Victim)

The Criterion Collection has just announced its 2024 October slate of new film restoration, which is topped by (always a subjective call) the Oct. 8 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack release of Produced by Val Lewton. 

This is a double-feature showcasing films produced by the legendary Val Lewton in 1943.   Both are new 4K restorations.

Kicking off the evening’s double-feature presentation (be sure to have the popcorn ready) is director Jacques Tourneur’s I Walked with a Zombie, the follow-up entry film to Lewton’s very successful 1942 release of Cat People (also directed by Tourneur).

Betsy Connell (Frances Dee — Wells Fargo, So Ends Our Night, Reunion in Reno, etc.) is a nurse who has been hired by Paul Holland (Tom Conway — The Falcon in San Francisco, Cat People, The Falcon Strikes Back), a sugarcane plantation owner on the island Saint Sebastian in the Caribbean, to care for his wife Jessica (Christine Gordon).  She is suffering from an unknown “tropical” disease.  

What Betsy (Frances Dee was a last minute replacement when Anna Lee was forced to withdraw with a scheduling conflict … this was Dee’s only genre film) discovers is that Jessica has been cursed and is in a permanent zombie-like state.   The other thing that Betsy discovers is that not all of the residents of Saint Sebastian are whom they appear to be.   Very mysterious!

Commentary by authors Kim Newman and Stephen Jones is included with I Walked with a Zombie.

The Second feature is The Seventh Victim, also from 1943 that was originally scheduled to be directed by Tourneur, but he was replaced by film editor Mark Robson in his first directing assignment — he would go on to be nominated for Best Director for Peyton Place and The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (Robson would follow up with The Ghost Ship, Isle of the Dead and Bedlam — all Lewton productions).

Future Oscar-winner Kim Hunter (Best Supporting Actress for A Streetcar Named Desire) would make her film debut here as Mary Gibson, who drops out of school to go to New York City to search for Jacqueline (Jean Brooks), her sister who has gone missing.

Mary discovers some strange goings-on involving a secret devil-worshipping cult known as the Palladists, who have Jacqueline under their control.   Who can she trust?   Jacqueline’s psychiatrist, Dr. Judd (played by Tom Conway) … can he be trusted?   Murder and mayhem follow … will Mary be the next victim?

Bonus features include commentary from film historian Steve Haberman.   

Also included director Constantine Nasr’s feature-length documentary titled Shadows in the Dark: The Val Lewton Legacy.