In 1942 Val Lewton was appointed head of RKO’s new horror unit. He was given two directives:
- The maximum budget for a movie was $150,000
- No picture should run more than 75 minutes
Over the next four years Lewton made ten pictures for RKO and they include some of the finest horror movies ever made. $150,000 in 1942 is roughly equivalent to $3 million today. By comparison Killers of the Flower Moon cost $200 million with a running time of three hours and 26 minutes.
Lewton, a Russian emigre (original name: Vladimir Leventon), had been working for David Selznick. He was story editor for Gone With the Wind. If you recall the movie, the elevator scene showing wounded soldiers was written by him (Selznick never realized it had been written as a sort of joke).
Lewton’s picture relied on mood, writing, and acting rather than special effects or gore. They include a very creepy story of Satanic worship (The Seventh Victim in 1943), a werewolf picture with a cat instead of a wolf (Cat People in 1942), a vampire picture without a vampire (Isle of the Dead in 1945), and the best zombie movie made until Romero’s Night of the Living Dead in 1968 (I Walked With a Zombie—1943).
I’m not sure any pictures made today can actually be compared with the Val Lewton horror movies. M. Night Shyamalan’s perhaps?
As we are deluged with slasher pictures over the next week or so, I recommend seeking out Val Lewton’s RKO horror movies. They’ll be 75 minutes well spent.
