ThiefHott Too much of everything

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Carlos Fiorelli It is the worst film produced by Val Lewton (the best is 'The Leopard Man', same year, 1943). Nothing in this movie makes sense, nothing is deeply explained, the script seems to have been written by a (retarded) child of 5 years, and all the actors have a terrible performance and without expression. They are like refrigerators trying a dialogue among themselves.The story: a young woman, Kim Hunter, has her missing sister, and a bunch of idiots who come out of nowhere, try to help her. One of them is the missing sister's husband, and suddenly, in the middle of the movie, he falls in love with Hunter (apparently, and for no reason, he loses interest in the missing wife)! The movie has no style, no genre: is not a mystery, it is not terror, it is not noir, it is not drama, in fact, it is difficult to determine the style, perhaps it would be a new definition for 'pure garbage'. The most we can say is that is ridiculous and comical in some scenes: Hunter's missing sister, wears a Cleopatra-style wig, and is part of a group of Satanists (as emotional as a bunch of gathered trees). Inexplicably the 'sister Cleopatra' is a potential suicide (do not ask the reason, the movie does not explain anything; the goal of the director, producer and screenwriter is to make you sleep ).The highlight scene: the group of Satanists gets highly impressed when some characters recite The Lord's Prayer for them!Anyway, you can risk and lose 70 minutes of your life seeing this pigsty, however, remember you will notice that never in your life 70 minutes took so long to pass!

TheRedDeath30 The 1940s were an odd time in the annals of horror history. Of course, this has a lot to do with WWII and the fact that people were facing real horrors in their world, but it was a transitional period as well. Universal's golden age was over. While they were still churning out the movies, they were mostly second rate sequels featuring the same monsters over and over. There was really very little else going on in the horror genre. Film noir and the suspense thriller ruled the box offices and it was no surprise, then, that those genres crept their way into the horror film in the works of Val Lewton at RKO, who took the crown away from Universal and carried it into the next decade, starting with classics like CAT PEOPLE and I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE. I have always found my personal opinion of Lewton's movies to be lower than those of the horror community, who tend to worship at his feet. By no means am I going to sit here and tell you that these are not great films, but they are not "my style". Further, I would argue that it was Jacques Tourner (as director) who made the early Lewton produced movies so great and once he moved on to other things, RKO was not able to match that early success. But alas, I am getting far too much into my horror geek history lessons and away from the actual movie itself.Our film begins with a young woman who has learned that her sister has disappeared. She leaves school to go to the big city and find her sister. What occurs from there is an odd web of story lines that don't always make a lot of sense. We learn that her sister, Jacqueline, was an odd death-obsessed young woman (goth far before goth was cool). She has just sold her cosmetics empire to her partner. One of the first people that our heroine meets turns out to be her sister's husband. Though married to Jacqueline, he seems to know almost nothing about her personal life, doesn't appear to live with his wife and falls for the young sister in no time, at all. We have poet who hangs around an Italian restaurant. He has stopped writing for a reason that's never truly explains, seems to be the love interest for our heroine, though that story line is cast aside. He joins our other main characters on the quest for a woman he's never met to help some people he just met a few days ago. Now, throw in a psychiatrist, who stopped practicing. He's the only one that knows where Jacqueline is and mainly serves to throw in lines that are supposed to be introspective. We get some odd side characters, as well, such as a private investigator who seems to be here to make one scene work, then disappears just as quickly.Of course, all of this revolves around some devil worshipers. Don't get excited, though. These are not anything close to the cultists you might find in ROSEMARY'S BABY or THE DEVIL RIDES OUT or any of the other late 60s/ early 70s Satanic panic movies. It's basically a bridge club, full of wealthy types, who never actually discuss anything occultist at all, but seem hellbent on preserving their anonymity for some never explained reason.As I'm writing this, I'm actually surprised at the tone that I'm taking because I never intended for this review to bash the movie. In fact, I do enjoy it, but it's occurring to me how silly the plot may be, but that's really beside the point. Like all of the movies produced by Lewton, this movie is all about images, suggestions, fear and shadows. The film carries a pervading fear of death, while at the same time being fascinated by death. Jacqueline (the missing girl) kept a noose in her apartment as a reminder that death was always a step away. An investigator is killed and we learn of many other deaths in the lives of both the occult and our main characters. Death, almost, becomes a character in itself, lurking over the shoulders of everyone involved. None of Lewton's movies were ever really about monsters, or horrors presented cheaply for the audience. Settings and scenarios were created where the audience implanted the horror in their own minds. Some would tell you that this is the best sort of horror. I see this as one of the first examples of something audiences had never even really heard of in 1943, the psychological horror film. This is a movie that's not about monsters in the shadows, or blood on the killer's hand, but about the horrors that lie inside each of our heads and our own innate fears of death.

mark.waltz Living a secret life on the lower East Side, a group of devil worshipers seem to be an analogy for fifth columnists playing the spying game in New York in this combination of psychological horror and film noir. Broadway actress Kim Hunter made her film debut as the sweet younger sister of a missing woman. She drops out of college to head to New York to find her missing sister and stumbles upon something far more sinister than she could ever imagine.The dark shadows of the New York streets take front and center in this intriguing thriller that makes the night a villain and its characters simply players in a game of chess where both the winner and loser's grand prize is the same: death, where the fate is certainly worse. These streets are filled with odd noises, scary images and even today, when you venture down certain avenues in Manhattan, you may feel the same chills that the heroines here certainly felt, 70 years ago.The odd hairstyle of the missing sister (Phyllis Brooks) is pure Val Lewton with its severity even though the character is not meant to be evil, just mysterious. She appears almost death-like, a combination of "Dracula's Daughter" and "She Who Must Be Obeyed" as she first appears to put her finger up to her lips to "shhh" her sister in their first scene together as her presence is definitely meant as a metaphor. Death definitely does not take a holiday here, and the most evil that the devil worshipers get is to prod their intended victims onto suicide, making their meeting place feel like a room of "Rebecca's" Mrs. Danvers.The direction is appropriately grim and slow moving, giving it almost a feeling of floatation, with a scene in a shower that obviously influenced Hitchcock decades later. As imperfect as this film is, it is one that won't leave your mind, and one you will re-visit to try and find the many hidden metaphors and themes which its creators intended.

utgard14 A girl (Kim Hunter in her film debut) searches for her missing sister in New York City and stumbles across cult of devil-worshippers. Eerie chiller is the fourth of producer Val Lewton's famous psychological horror films at RKO. Director Mark Robson does a great job in creating an unsettling and spooky atmosphere. The film's only significant flaw is the romantic subplot. This part is forced and rushed, even moreso than was typical of romance in films of the time where "love at first sight" was the rule not the exception. The thirteen year age difference doesn't help. Overall, it's an effective and moody film that has film noir touches and a bleak but memorable ending.