Black Moon

I didn't expect too much from this film due to the simple fact that I'd never heard of it, but on a recommendation, I took a look at it and to say that it did not disappoint is an understatement! If you are a fan of 1930's horror films, this one has it all. The incessant background drumming on the island of San Christopher (Haiti) heard throughout 90 percent of the movie is wholly pervasive and will get your heart pumping at an increasingly frenzied pace right up until the closing credits.

This is one of the last of the pre-code pictures and it hold nothing back. Jack Holt, Dorothy Burgess and, especially, Fay Wray give fine performances. No comic relief here; this is all played for horrors and suspense! Director Roy William Neill (of "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man" fame) does a commendable job of keeping the pace of the film frantic, yet tight. Too many "zombie" pictures just sort of plod along, but this one (though technically "voodoo", rather than "zombie"-themed) is non-stop, edge of your seat kind of fare.

As a fan of the genre, what a delight to "find" this movie and more so to have it exceed all of my expectations. Fay Wray made several other renown horror films in the 2 year period preceding "Black Moon": "The Most Dangerous Game", "Doctor X", "The Vampire Bat", "Mystery of the Wax Museum", "The Clairvoyant", and, oh yes, a little movie called "King Kong". "Black Moon" holds its own along with all of the aforementioned films.

This is a tense and exciting little film. I was surprised how quickly and effectively the movie manages to ratchet up the tension without wasting time on endless setup, giving us just enough to know the characters and get involved with the situation. There is a very effective and ominous tone struck with the opening frames and nicely developed as the cast heads to an island that is cut off from help. Good performances and cinematography help greatly; for once we have a juvenile who is not annoying and smart leads in Fay Wray and Jack Holt. Dorothy Burgess does a good job with a complicated part. This plays like a forerunner to Val Lewton's classic I Walked with a Zombie, though there are no zombies present here. Worth catching the beautiful print on TCM.

You'll want to sit down for this.

As with so many features from this era, 'Black moon' maintains a brisk pace, filling its 68 minutes with as much story as it can. We get a great deal of exposition in just 11 minutes, including an immediate touch of atmosphere - with persistent, lingering tribal drums - as Juanita (Dorothy Burgess) illustrates her lingering obsession very early on. Those drums help to maintain the disquiet about the film as they remain a prevalent element of the soundtrack.

I think every performance is exquisite. Set design and decoration, costume design, hair, and makeup are fantastic. Lighting, especially used in conjunction with smoke effects, is marvelous. Every scene is orchestrated and executed with profound excellence, including choreography. The music is captivating, the overarching mood is wondrously harrowing, and the writing is perfectly solid: scenes, characters, overall narrative.

If I were viewing 'Black moon' strictly as a horror feature, considering only its craft and how well it manifests a feeling of horror, then I would 100% regard it as a superlative genre picture, an essential overlooked classic, and a must-see that I dearly love.

However.

There's a strong, uncomfortable, predominant undercurrent of racism, unseemly cultural prejudice, and colonialism throughout the movie, to say nothing of a stereotypical presentation of voodoo. This runs parallel to a common theme in horror, and seen often in early cinema as a whole, of sexism presenting as active disregard for women's agency and autonomy. These notions remain paramount as bodies fall and terrible events accumulate, building tension and suspense, but to an effect opposite of the feature's design: we sympathize with the characters that are painted as antagonistic.

'Black moon' occupies a very peculiar space. On the face of it the content most assuredly fits the bill as horror, and there's an outstanding, dread air of dark power that pervades the feature. At the same time, just as much if not more than the specific course of events, the intended fright - absolutely from the "protagonist" characters' perspectives, and arguably possibly from a standpoint as well of the time in which the movie was made - is in the very idea of "natives" holding power, or of a white woman willingly supporting them, let alone immersing herself in their culture. That the film's antagonists commit or conspire of concretely villainous deeds is a contrivance of storytelling that could be applied elsewhere and otherwise, and is secondary to the central thematic focus. Dialogue contextualizes vengeance against the white landowners as "sacrifice," where "justice" would be at least as appropriate a descriptor, if not more. Synopses describe Juanita's path as "corruption," but what I see is enlightenment, tempered only by the express actions as noted.

There's a LOT going on in this movie, more than a contemporary analysis would have been able to glean. Retrospect informs how very complicated and dubious 'Black moon' is in its themes and narrative: unquestionably awful specific actions, all but negated in their import as they are wrapped completely in a broader sense of apprehension and antipathy toward a) the self-determination and sovereignty of black people, b) distinct and different cultures at large, and c) anyone who would commiserate thusly, and on equal terms. I'm not inclined to think that it was the abject intent of the filmmakers, or anyone involved, to create a movie this egregiously racist. But every brushstroke, however innocent, naively led to the ultimate fruition of a very unfortunate, very abhorrent portrait.

On the one hand, I want to say this is one of the best horror movies I've ever seen. On the other hand, it deserves thorough condemnation. My mind is blown, in two very different ways.

I will grant that I may be reading too much into it all. I'm rather reminded of Roger Moore's debut as James Bond, 'Live and let die' - I really do feel like the filmmakers set out to tell a very thrilling story, and nothing more. The only problem is that they didn't seem to realize just how much of a problem it was turning out to be as they went along - seeming to demonstrate a prejudice without even knowing it was there. Here, the dialogue of the "protagonists" in particular really hammers home the othering, and even if the slant of the final product were owed to mechanical spontaneity, the consistency with which these themes are expressed is troubling.

In the end I'm glad that I watched 'Black moon,' because I really do think it's an exemplar of horror, not least of all for the 1930s. But I also have a hard time imagining who I'd recommend it to, in recognition of its deep, deep flaws. In the best way, and in the worst way, this is a curiosity, and I don't know what more to say.

Black Moon (1934)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Twenty-plus years after her parents were murdered in a voodoo ritual, a woman (Dorothy Burgess) travels back to the native land where the people there want her to start up as their leader. The woman's secretary (Fay Wray) wires her husband (Jack Holt) to come and try to save her but it might be too late. This forgotten horror film from Columbia falls somewhere between WHITE ZOMBIE and I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE so fans of those two films will certainly want to check this out. As far as I'm concerned, I'm not a major fan of all three films as I think they all have a great atmosphere but in the end their stories just aren't strong enough to carry the films for me. There's a lot of stuff that does work here with the biggest plus being the atmosphere created by the director. We really get the feeling as if we're on this island surrounded by the strange locals and in the middle of something evil. There's no fog machines but that doesn't keep Neill away from delivering the goods as the dark tone of the film also hits on something that the Val Lewton films would eventually do and that's the use of shadows. Another plus is some fine cinematography as well as a nice performance by Holt. Wray, the original Scream Queen, is good too, although, as usual, she isn't given enough to do. What doesn't work, for one, is the performance of Burgess who is easy on the eyes but her character is badly underwritten. Another problem is the actual screenplay that really doesn't offer any twist or turns up until the very end when the movie does go in a direction that you wouldn't normally expect.

In my unhealthy quest to see every available Fay Wray film, I picked up a copy of this off of Ebay, and I was very happy I did.

The Good: The film has a very dark mood to it, very much like the later film, "I Walked with a Zombie". Settings and locations are similar, and there are scenes and sets that look a lot like that later film. The overall feeling of doom is here, and the climactic scene is very well done. The scenes of the voodoo ceremonies really shine in this film, and although not a true horror flick, this satisfies with some eerie shots and creepy touches.

The Bad: I am not a Jack Holt fan. In my opinion he is the weakest part of the film. Also, there were some very good shots in the film. Some odd angles with good lighting. There were times, however, when the direction seemed uninspired and timid with this strong material. Almost like two directors had a hand in it.

Overall this is a fine film that deserves a good cleanup and DVD release.