The Seventh Victim (1943)

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Believe me, I really did try to cut this 1943 Mystery/Thriller (about modern-day devil worshippers operating in NYC) some serious slack. I really did.But, when it finally came around to meeting these "Palladists" (aka. Satan's ass-kissers) - They, unfortunately, came across (to me) as being even more dreary and joyless than a bunch of snivelling bible-thumpers - And, because of that - I had no choice but to rate this moronic picture with just a 3-star rating.Yes. I do realize that the Hays Code was in full effect at the time that "The 7th Victim" was released - But, all the same - This picture certainly could have delivered a more substantially worthwhile wallop (considering its subject matter) than it inevitably did.Anyway - In my opinion - This was one of those vintage pictures that was so bad that it was downright laughable. Thank goodness that all of this devil-worship nonsense only had a 70-minute running time.

Traveling to New York, a woman looking for her missing sister hears that she has been involved with a supposed cult of devil-worshipers living in the area who after learning the awful truth about the group must escape before they get to her.There wasn't a whole lot here that works. The ending minutes are its best, where it contains a chase through a series of darkened hallways that's effectively eerie and manages to get some wonderful chills in the midst of it which is the film's best scene. The ending is a nice shock gag where something actually happens in the film that really scores, highlighted mostly by the lighting in the scene so it stands out even more. The meetings with the group are pretty chilling, and the one memorable image of a room opening to reveal a chair with a noose over it is a good shock. The only other scene that manages to standout is a pretty good confrontation between one character in a shower and another one outside shown only through shadows that really feels quite creepy for its unknown quality. They're the only things worthwhile about the film as this here is a little bit of a disappointment. The main issue holding this back is the fact that the film sets up its second half revelation of the group, leaving the front-end a little slow. There's really only a few moments in the film beforehand that manage to score anything of interest. The pace of the investigation is simply the main issue, being filled up with large amounts of talking over what has actually happened so far in the search that's mostly devoted to having everything told to everyone else about what's happening so far to each other. That leaves the film without a whole lot of action in it, giving it the appearance of a really laid-back film. There's really nothing going on as it's all verbally repeated to everyone else, so it makes it seem like nothing has happened in the film. This is the main thing wrong.Today's Rating-PG: Mild Violence.

Mary Gibson (Kim Hunter) is told that her older sister Jacqueline has disappeared. Instead of staying at her school to work, Mary sets off to find her sister. She finds a hangman's noose in Jacqueline's room. Private eye Irving August offers to help but he gets a warning. Then she finds Gregory Ward who was inquiring at the morgue. She joins August on his investigation and he's killed. On the subway, she encounters two men carrying August. The police won't believe her. Psychiatrist Dr. Judd claims to have Jacqueline but she sees her run away. She also finds out that Ward is actually Jacqueline's husband. Poet Jason Hoag offers to help.I love the paranoid darkness that runs through this movie. The shadowy look is great. There are all kinds of murky secrets and dangerous conspiracies. It's young Kim Hunter's first feature. She's a bit stiff and naive which fits the character very well. The story is very convoluted which keeps taking sharp turns with a few too many characters. Mary is overwhelmed and I would be too. It's highly questionable whether the movie makes complete sense. At the very least, there are a lot of coincidences.

"The Seventh Victim" stars Kim Hunter as Mary Gibson, a young woman who embarks upon a quest to find her missing sister. Assisting her are a private detective (Lou Lubin) and her sister's concerned husband (Hugh Beaumont).More sophisticated than was typical of 1940s, low-budget chillers, "Victim" watches as Mary stumbles upon a satanic cult. The existence of this cult is revealed in meticulous increments, Mary's "reality" slowly revealing itself to be nothing less than devilish; everyone around her seems to be secretly knee-deep in evil."The Seventh Victim" was part of a cycle of low-budget horror films by producer Val Lewton. Most of the better films in this cycle were directed by cult-favourite Jacques Tourneur. "Victim", however, was helmed by Mark Robson, Tourneur's assistant on a number of pictures. Like his mentor, Robson has a gift for ambiance, his film mixing noir tropes with a weird, bohemian atmosphere, the film's Greenwich Village locales filled with struggling poets, psychiatrists and strange cult members. These cult members are locked in an odd double bind; they're committed to a life of non-violence, but wish to kill in the name of Satan. Robson would revisit these contradictions in 1957's "Peyton Place", where sinister currents waft beneath an idyllic New England town.7/10 – Worth one viewing.