Black Moon

This film proves that a decent retrospective of the films of Roy William Neill is long overdue. A forgotten horror movie of real merit, BLACK MOON is obscure enough not to be listed in Halliwell's Film Guide but of sufficient interest to have played in New York's Film Forum a couple of years back (where I first saw it on a double billed with ZOMBIES OF MORA TAU!) The plot is right out of "Conjure Wife" with a slight foreshadowing of I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE. A New York socialite (Dorothy Burgess) is haunted by her childhood memories of being brought up by a voodoo priestess in Haiti. Her hope is to free herself from the past by confronting it outright but her plan proves disastrous. Returning to the island, she is promptly elevated to the status of a white goddess among the natives and is soon participating in human sacrifices, eventually plotting against her husband and infant daughter.

I have to admit my enthusiasm for this movie isn't shared by others in my immediate movie circle. The major flaw is that Burgess' transformation into a jungle high priestess is simply glossed over in the script. Indeed, she's off-screen for the better part of the movie. Instead the film focuses on the budding romance of Jack Holt as the harried husband and his secretary (that she's played by Fay Wray is at least a consolation). Still the film works up to an ominous mood, creating a palpable hothouse atmosphere as voodoo drums beat steadily on the soundtrack.

The film played on Turner Classic Movie many years back and is, presumably, in limited circulation. It's dated racial attitudes undoubtedly won't help it get the wider distribution it deserves. It's safe to say that a DVD release is unlikely but the film is worth tracking down.

I'm not sure, but Black Moon may be the first horror film to be set in the West Indies and focus on voodoo. Of course, it would be the Val Lewton/Jacques Tourneur film I Walked With a Zombie that would go on to become the best known early example; but Black Moon is still a worthy effort. The plot focuses on a woman born in the West Indies. She left at the age of two when her parents were sacrificed in a voodoo ritual, but apparently she is under some curse and decides to return to the island. She takes along her husband, nanny, daughter and his secretary and upon returning to the island, is elevated to the level of a God by the locals; which leads to danger for her family. The film was obviously made on a low budget as it all looks very cheap throughout. This improves once the film reaches the West Indies as the location shoots take some of the focus off the cheap looking sets seen earlier on in the film. The film is very slow burning and takes a while to get going, but once it does it's constantly interesting. Director Roy William Neill (who would of course go on to become best known for his Sherlock Holmes films) does well at implementing the atmosphere needed to ensure that the film is successful. It has to be said that there isn't a great deal of tension in the early parts of the film; but this is made up for by the ending which is strong. Overall, I wouldn't quite say that this film is a classic; but it will certainly be of interest for fans of thirties horror.

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.

"I Walked with a Zombie" may not have been the first Voodoo film adapted from Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre," which is not surprising when you consider the West Indies was where Edward Rochester courted his mad wife. Perhaps it's a stretch, but "Black Moon" seems to contain several plot elements from Bronte's novel as Stephen Lane—whose West Indian born wife is drifting into madness—forms a close personal bond with his secretary.

When the wife (Dorothy Burgess), under the influence of a Voodoo curse, returns to her childhood home in the West Indies, Lane's secretary (Fay Wray) accompanies her. Lane (Jack Holt) soon follows. Here the secretary becomes a substitute mother for Stephen's child, recalling a similar relationship between Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester's ward Adele. Also, Stephen, like Edward Rochester, can finally have the woman he truly loves only when his wife dies as a result of her madness, in this case leading a native uprising.

Judging from other comments about this being a good example of pre-code horror, my expectations were high. But the director and writers never adequately explored the terror of situations. There are no build-ups of suspense. Things just happen. People are found dead after the fact. Killings and Voodoo sacrifices that happen on-screen are clumsily directed. Nevertheless, performances are uniformly good, the script is literate, and there are a few moments of cinematic art. The print I saw on Turner Classic Movies is very clean; and I was impressed by Joe August's cinematography in the scene in the tower as it filled with smoke from the burning tunnel. The interplay of light and smoke created an eerie atmosphere that I wish had been made more of.