GL84 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.

SnoopyStyle 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.

tieman64 "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.

JoeKarlosi A very young Kim Hunter (in her very first film role) plays the part of Mary, a school girl who learns that her older sister and provider, Jacqueline, has disappeared. This leads the young Mary to Greenwich Village in New York City, in an attempt to find out what happened to her. Along the way she meets three older men who try to assist her: a lawyer, a psychologist, and a writer. In time she discovers that Jacqueline was a member of a cult of devil worshipers who decided to leave the group and must now pay the price for her betrayal.It's frustrating when beginning a review by trying to assure the reader that you do, in fact, ordinarily appreciate the very type of film you're reviewing, even though you're disappointed by this one. So in this case I will start by saying that I am a fan of Val Lewton's 1940's horror films for RKO, as well as '40s horrors in general. Now that this is out of the way, I'll let you know that I have devoted several viewings to THE SEVENTH VICTIM over the years, and though I always wish I could praise it, it's really too flawed in a number of ways to be considered anything more than an above-average noirish drama, perhaps with a hint of the morbid. The photography, as in all the Lewton thrillers, is foreboding and well done. While this movie was unliked by critics upon its original release, over the decades it has become praised as an early forerunner of future satanic cult horrors such as ROSEMARY'S BABY. As such, I can respect it for paving the way more than I actually feel it was successful in doing it.I suppose Kim Hunter is adequate at best in her early movie role as the naïve student Mary. There is precious little emotion from her throughout, and indeed just about all the other main characters in the film are equally dire in attitude and under-played. The plot is somewhat muddled. For openers, there is no reason for Mary and the lawyer to suddenly tell one another they've fallen in love towards the end, when all they've done is meet briefly, and share some uninvolved words about trying to locate the woman's missing sister. This feels like it was thrown in simply because it was some kind of expected obligation. Then we have much confounding nonsense as follows: the suicidal sister Jacqueline is captured by the self-professed "non-violent" cult and brought to their room, and is urged for hours and hours to pick up a glass and drink poison to kill herself for her betrayal, but she keeps resisting ... so they let her go home free (?). And when Jacqueline gets home, what is the first thing she does? Hangs herself anyway! Meanwhile, she has been stalked all the way home (in the classic "Lewton Walk" style) by a knife-wielding hit-man who had exited the cult meeting right along with her (I thought they were "non-violent"?-- and even if they changed their minds, why send her home and have a guy follow her to stab her, instead of knifing her right at the meeting?).Most disappointing of all is the very end where the good guy confronts the harmless "devil worshipers" on their own turf. (All this time they have consisted of high class types, sitting around as if at a dinner party, dressed to the nines and drinking wine while chatting, more like a lodge meeting, and not doing anything even remotely satanic). All it takes is for the hero to recite a part of The Lord's Prayer, and then the members bow their heads in shame. Very weak. **1/2 out of ****