The Seventh Victim (1943)

November 8, 2024 6:15 AM

A young woman (Kim Hunter) in search of her missing sister (Jean Brooks) uncovers a Satanic cult in New York's Greenwich Village and finds that they could have something to do with her sibling's random disappearance.

Also starring Tom Conway, Isabel Jewell, Hugh Beaumont, Erford Gage, Evelyn Brent, Ben Bard, Lou Lubin.

Directed by Mark Robson. Written by Charles O'Neal, DeWitt Bodeen. Produced by Val Lewton for RKO Radio Pictures. Cinematography by Nicholas Musuraca. Edited by John Lockert. Music by Roy Webb.

95% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

There are some ropy SD versions you can rent, listed on JustWatch listing. But if you can access a Blu Ray player, skip them and buy or borrow a copy of the new Criterion Collection edition and watch that instead. The 4K version in particular is gorgeous.

posted by DirtyOldTown (4 comments total)

If you're not familiar with Val Lewton, his work is fascinating.

The ten second version is that he's a Ukrainian immigrant who was a novelist and an artist and managed to work his way into an opportunity as the head of horror film production at RKO. His only rules were that he had to choose titles from a list that they gave him, each film had to cost $150,000 or less, and he had to make money. He ended up making moody, atmospheric classics that not only did well at the box office, but often had dense thematic underpinnings about sexuality, colonialism, power, you name it. Without the budget for extensive effects, he had to get by off of mood and suggestion, and in doing so, he invented his own language for horror.

This one's great. Kim Hunter (later Zira in the Planet of the Apes films) is a terrific ingenue, Jean Brooks is a fascinating enigma, and your whole sense of what is even happening shifts several times.

If ever there was a producer was an auteur, it's Lewton.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:23 AM on November 8 [2 favorites]

My kid's friends came in while I was watching the end of this.

[Bored, but trying to be polite}
"So what's happening?"
"That lady told her shrink about her secret Satanist society, so they've decided she has to die. They don't like to commit violence though, so they're trying to get her girlfriend to convince her to kill herself."
"WHAAAAAAT?"
"It shouldn't be hard. She rents an apartment that only has a noose and a chair in it, she keeps so she can be ready. Because she's a nihilist."

Yeah, Val Lewton is wild.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:26 AM on November 8 [4 favorites]

Love love love this one. I often think of it like a spooky Preston Sturges film - which is probably just me. But this one and Ghost Ship (both by Robson) are severely underrated of the Val Lewton RKO produced horror. The prolific Nicholas Musuraca (he shot 3 of the all time Noir classics - the Hitchhiker, Out of the Past and Clash By Night ) is also not talked about nearly as much as he should be.

And yeah watch the new prints and don't bother with older ones.
posted by Ashwagandha at 9:54 PM on November 8 [1 favorite]

Saw a Letterboxd list of iconic bangs in cinema the other day and was shocked this wasn’t on it
posted by bcwinters at 10:56 AM on November 9