Val Lewton: Suggestive Horror, Freudian Undertones, and the Beginning of Film Noir

Hello all! This is my first blog installment for the “It Records” podcast. I hope to churn out one of this suckers every week before our latest episode and/or mini-episode. If you happened to tune in this week, my blog will be in reference to our mini-episode where Pete and I discussed our favorite and influential directors in horror.

My choice was Val Lewton – pause for confusion and skepticism. Technically, Lewton never directed a single motion picture during his stint in the movie industry, but his hands were all over the beginning of the horror genre in the early 1940s. In 1942, Lewton was made the head of RKO’s horror unit, which came to be known as the Snake Pit, and the rest, as they say, is history. Before this title, he was a major motion picture screenwriter with credits on such films as “Gone with the Wind.”

I know what you are thinking. Lewton? Forties horror? How is this relevant to you love for the genre? YOU’RE A HACK! I understand your resentment, but hear me out. The forties horror films are usually disparaged in standard historical account with the rare exception of Lewton’s B movie magic between 1942-1946. In fact, Lewton’s films, which were mostly directed by Jacques Tourneuer, championed the expressionist tradition of the 1930s with a rich blend of the popular Freudian psychoanalytic theory of the 1940s. His films relayed on psychological atmosphere and suggestive horror to elicit a response rather than shock and flash like the Universal predecessors at the time.

For the most part, the suggestive horror was achieved by camera techniques and lighting. (If you have ever seen a Lewton produced film let me tell you, it is all shadows, shadows, shadows.) Where some critics have bestowed the birth and fame of the Film Noir genre to Lewton’s pictures. Unlike Gothic horror popular at the time, Film Noir overlaid expressionism low-key lighting and skewed shot compositions into crime stories to make stories seem more “realistic.” These same techniques are being utilized today in modern horror, especially low-key lighting. Film Noir conveyed a thick layer of psychological subjectivity pertinent to its violent, sexually obsessive or deviant characters.

Furthermore, the other elements Lewton hits in his pictures which generated the Film Noir genre and enhanced the horror genre include style over content, the majority of films are lit for night, shadows are rampant and they are vertical creating a disorienting cognitive awareness for the viewer. Concurrently, assorted high and low angle shots, high contrast lighting with shadows, and compositional tension is preferred over physical action.

Blah! Enough about Film Noir Matt. This is a horror podcast. Although, from the stylized techniques I have banally riddled out before you, you can at least see now how Lewton’s influence during his time at RKO still has an impression on the horror genre. It also helped create the Film Noir craze over the next decade.

Thematically, if you could infer from the title of the blog, Lewton preferred films with heavy subtext which would conjure up the audiences own nightmares instead of the studio having to actual create a monster. All of Lewton’s film relayed heavily on Freudian theory. More specifically, his biggest three picture – “Cat People” “I Walked with a Zombie” and “Curse of the Cat People” – are stories rich with psychosexual conflicts and “scientific” explanations beneath the superficial gothic details. Each feature delirium/nightmares filled with phallic imagery and the uncanny (the androgynous slasher villain, right?).

The Freudian influence can still be seen in horror today. Water is meant to be a safe haven in Freudian psychoanalysis. It is a representation of the woman’s womb giving life or taking it away (i.e. Jason drowns in Crystal Lake and the sanctuary in “It Follows” is a community pool for example.) The knife or blade like object as a murder weapon is the most cringe-worthy and overused weapon in the horror genre, but can be pulled back to the cognitive dissonance we are to be felt when presented with phallic imagery. Sex. Need I say more? This is a troupe in any horror film today as a sure way to die. Freudian theory discusses psychosexual tendencies in gory detail (see what I did there?) Beneath every decision we make, a sexual urge is being repressed or we are giving into one. In Lewton’s “Cat People,” the main problem faced by the protagonist is her sexual drive. If she as much as kisses her new husband, she is afraid she will turn into the blood-thirsty panther of her ancestors and take the lives of the innocent. Ergo, all the way back in the 1940s reference to sexual taboos leading to or being the cause of death can be traced to the horror genre. Finally, entering a basement or “subterranean realm” this is the journey into the subconscious, the home of the ID, or the primal urges (i.e. Freddy’s boiler room or Buffalo Bill’s dank hole.) STAY AWAY FROM THEIR KIDS!

Enough about Freud though. I am sure not many people enjoy his work, but his works played a large role in Lewton’s film and as a result, still have traces in modern horror. All of Lewton’s films seem to capture their characters in limbo: either between cultures, life and death, or past and present. Never truly disgusting or frightening you with image, but terrifying your mind with suggestive material. Thoughts you may have repressed his films conjured out into the forefront which now haunt you more than the images on the screen. All in all, you now at least have got a taste of who Lewton is and I suggest checking out one or two of his produced films. For your viewing pleasure I have uploaded the trailers to “Cat People” and “I Walked with A Zombie.”

Pop some corn, relax, and take a walk into the mind of Val Lewton.