Product Details

• Actors: Tom Conway, Jean Brooks (II), Isabel Jewell, Kim Hunter, Evelyn Brent
• Format: NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Warner Home Video
• VHS Release Date: January 1, 2002
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00006BS8G
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #277,521 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Cults, Tragedy, Death, and a Val Lewton Classic, October 25, 2005

By 

Gary F. Taylor "GFT" (Biloxi, MS USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Seventh Victim [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Val Lewton (1904-1951) was brought to RKO when that studio decided to compete with Universal in the horror genre. As it happened, RKO was teetering on the verge of bankruptcy at the time--and Lewton was given the audience-tested title CAT PEOPLE and ordered to create an inexpensive movie to fit it. Without the budget to create "a monster movie," Lewton responded with a remarkably artful film that relied on suggestion and implication. He would go on to produce nine such films in all.

Released in 1943, THE SEVENTH VICTIM is not quite in the same league with such Lewton films as I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE and THE LEOPARD MAN--but it is astonishing just the same. The story concerns young Mary Gibson (Kim Hunter, in her film debut) who leaves her boarding school to search for her older and strangely missing sister Jacqueline (Jean Brooks)--only to find herself unexpected ensnared by a satanic cult operating in New York's Greenwich Village.

Although the story line is a bit choppy, director Mark Robson guides it with a sure hand. Hunter, Brooks, and an exceptional supporting cast including Lewton favorites Tom Conway and Elizabeth Russell give the low-key but effective performances one associates with a Lewton film; the story offers a number of unexpected twists; and the cinematography is the light-and-shadow trademark of a Lewton production at its best.

But most disconcerting--and the film's greatest asset--is the cult itself, which consists of people you might have met on any 1943 sidewalk. They are entirely normal, and it would not be until Roman Polanski filmed ROSEMARY'S BABY that another film took a similar approach. The effect is at once disconcerting and remarkably chilling.

Unfortunately, THE SEVENTH VICTIM is not widely available at this date. The film is available in a hard-to-find VHS, but Lewton and 1940s horror fans would do well consider the five disk DVD set THE VAL LEWTON HORROR COLLECTION. In either case, the film is strongly recommended.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "He calleth all his children by name", June 6, 2007

By 

bernie "xyzzy" (Arlington, Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Seventh Victim [VHS] (VHS Tape)

"I runne to death, and death meets me as fast, and all my pleasures are like yesterday" ("Holy Sonnet" VII Jonne Donne.)

Mary Gibson (Kim Hunter) is called to the office of here boarding school. There she is confronted with the fact that her sister is missing; the person who tells this is Mrs. Lowood (Ottola Nesmith) the person who runs the school. Now where have we heard the name Lowood before?

As you have already guessed Mary fearing something is afoot, is compelled to locate her sister Jacqueline (Jean Brooks). On her quest she meets various characters, all wanting to help her. We must guess whether they are good guys or have nefarious motives. One such character is Doctor Louis Judd (Tom Conway same name and similar character used in "Cat People").

Will Mary find her sister?
On the way will Mary find true love, at what cost?
Why the seventh victim, who were the other six?

Yes I know this is a Val Lewton production and if it is his best or worst, this film has his signature of being more psychological than supernatural. That is why this film is more than just a who-done-it.

The Val Lewton Horror Collection (Cat People / The Curse of the Cat People / I Walked with a Zombie / The Body Snatcher / Isle of the Dead / Bedlam / The Leopard Man / The Ghost Ship / The Seventh Victim / Shadows in the Dark)

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dreaming the City, March 30, 2006

By 

Douglas Doepke (Claremont, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Seventh Victim [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Ranks with the best of Lewton's legendary horror cycle. Really creepy urban atmosphere that makes good use of cheapo sets to convey sense of loneliness and despair, as Kim Hunter searches city labyrinths for mysterious sister. The Missing Persons office has unnerving atmosphere of people being processed out of existence by paperwork. The sinister subway is particularly well handlled and makes you think it's really the dark forces that are in control. The street scenes with no cars and few people are hauntingly spooky, as if you're all alone and something's after you. Sure, it's not realistic in a documentary sense. But, it appears this is how people often experience city life, and in a way that only the inner eye sees. Then too, it's all done in oddly poetic style, unlike most horror flicks, then or now.

All the elements of a Lewton barebones production are present-- creative use of sound and spaces, light and shadow, and several "got-cha's", including an unusual element for Lewton-- a fine central performance. The baby-faced Kim Hunter is just right as the gritty ingenue. As good as this minor gem is there are a number of flaws. Erford Gage, looks the part, but sometimes trips over the stilted dialogue of a Greenwich Village poet. (Interestingly, he was one of the very few Hollywood players to die in WWII.) It's also too bad that Jacques Tourneur was not available to bring his fluid camera style to bear on the material. He was the perfect director for Lewton's lyrical notions, as the poetic I Walked with a Zombie testifies. However, most at fault, is the production code of the day. No doubt the killjoy code is responsible for the smarmy lecture that is meant to show the diabolists The True Way. It's about as subtle and convincing as a hammer blow to the head and could only have come from some bureaucratic Guardian of Official Truth. It's no accident, I believe, that the true feelings of the filmmakers follow this episode with one of the most disturbingly downbeat fadeouts of that era.

Nor, for that matter, is it surprising that Hitchcock was a particular fan of Lewton's. But whereas Hitchcock finds horror in the commonplace, Lewton finds the commonplace in horror. Two sides of the same coin, and judging from Hunter's inventive shower scene, a source of inspiration for Hitchcock as well.