Scary Jane

Halloween approaching and the online world is high on eerie stuff. Film Critic looks at the history of zombies and along the way there comes...

The next significant zombie film was RKO producer Val Lewton and director Jacques Tourneur's I Walked With a Zombie (1943), a West Indies derivation of Charlotte Brontë's dark romance Jane Eyre. The movie's most atmospheric scene was the dreamlike nocturnal walk through the sugar-cane-plantation fields to a native voodoo ceremony with the sound of drums and the startling appearance of a giant bug-eyed zombie guard named Carrefour (Darby Jones). (Tim Dirks)

The Spectator begins an article one the film The Blair Witch Project as follows:

I am not the biggest fan of scary movies. More accurately, I am a total wimp when it comes to suspense. As a child, I vividly remember being so spooked while watching Jane Eyre that I had to watch parts of it from the adjoining kitchen, peering over the counter. (Danielle Ryan)

Replying to a letter from a reader on the subject of getting back together with your ex prompts Rowan Pelling from The Daily Mail to say,

Most people are far more threatened by their partner’s most significant ex than some rickety ship that passes in the night, and with good reason. Imagine being John Warner or Larry Fortensky — Liz Taylor’s sixth and seventh husbands — always living in the glowering shadow of Richard Burton.
It would feel as if you had Heathcliff hammering at your bedroom door and Taylor recently admitted that she sleeps with Burton’s final love letter to her on her bedside table.

And on a much mellower note, the Guernsey Press tells about a harvest thanksgiving service.

The Herm children were a large part of the service also. Teacher Mary Carey had prepared relevant poems and readings for them, including the work of Charlotte Brontë, Victor Hugo and Christina Rossetti, all heralding the colours and fruits of autumn and the transition from summer to winter. (Cheryl Latter)

PoeticTouch has uploaded to YouTube a few readings of Brontë poems: The Bluebell and The Student's Serenade by Anne Brontë and Mementos by Charlotte Brontë. Meanwhile, GrassingtonWeb has uploaded a video of Haworth and Wycoller.

Jane Eyre on the blogosphere today: Nicole Mercado and Dodopapa's Blog. And Wuthering Heights on Intersections.

Categories: Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Poetry