I tend to favor Jacques Tourneur's Cat People a little more than the others, but there's something extraordinary about Seventh Victim; watching it again last night, I was struck by how deep it went into darkness.
Super! You'd do well to add the other Lewtons, too. (You must've seen a couple of those, right Adam?) Unique in the horror genre, they are all uniformly excellent, each with something different to say. Essential viewing!
I've seen on 3 Lewtons, but I should try and go through them all. Not a large body of work--a pretty similar number to the films that Preston Sturges wrote & directed (and that was my most recent film-watching project).
...And watched it last night. Interesting movie, but I thought it made a big mistake in having the "victim" be creepier than the actual cult. You're just never very scared of them and don't understand why she is. From all appearances, they just sit around and talk about evil. ;)
Anyway, it had a lot of good points too. And it was fun to see Leave it to Beaver's Ward Cleaver playing Gregory Ward.
Nice Peter Chattawayan observation there, Adam. ;)
Yeah, I thought the film took a rather novel approach to the idea of a modern Greenwich Village cult. No orgies or blood sacrifices, just a bunch of urbane, dried-up devil worshippers playing deadly games. We don't actually see how they occupy their time, which somehow makes it a little more unsettling. (What if they get freaky on the weekends, like in The Devil Rides Out?)
Other things I admire: its atmosphere of pervasive dread (how about that ending, huh?), the imaginative shadowplay (see what the director does with the dark at the end of a hallway), and the traditional good vs. evil morality (with Kim Hunter caught in the middle).
Adam, maybe you'd like the more literary scripts better: Isle of the Dead, The Body Snatcher, and Bedlam. They all star Boris Karloff, and are creepy and philosophical in just the right measures.
I've seen The Body Snatcher (which I liked--but mostly for Kaloff's 110-percent-effort performance), but I'll check the others out soon. So far, I Walked with a Zombie is my favorite Lewton.
If you like Lewton, don't miss Leopard Man, which has some of the scariest bits in the series. 7th Victim comes very close to revealing Lewton's morbid side, which eventually led to his demise. NOTE: 7th victim also has a pre-Psycho shower scene!
The Devil Cult didn't just sit around... They sent hit men out to dispose of anyone who was a threat. The quietly urbane way they set about to control or kill their victims gives the film a strangled gentility... sort of like the politics of personal destruction served up in a thrice-shaken molitov cocktail hour.
10 comments:
... Yet another movie I desperately need to see. Is this your favorite of the Val Lewton films?
I tend to favor Jacques Tourneur's Cat People a little more than the others, but there's something extraordinary about Seventh Victim; watching it again last night, I was struck by how deep it went into darkness.
Hmmm, my library has this. Looks like I'll get a chance to see it!
Super! You'd do well to add the other Lewtons, too. (You must've seen a couple of those, right Adam?) Unique in the horror genre, they are all uniformly excellent, each with something different to say. Essential viewing!
I've seen on 3 Lewtons, but I should try and go through them all. Not a large body of work--a pretty similar number to the films that Preston Sturges wrote & directed (and that was my most recent film-watching project).
...And watched it last night. Interesting movie, but I thought it made a big mistake in having the "victim" be creepier than the actual cult. You're just never very scared of them and don't understand why she is. From all appearances, they just sit around and talk about evil. ;)
Anyway, it had a lot of good points too. And it was fun to see Leave it to Beaver's Ward Cleaver playing Gregory Ward.
Nice Peter Chattawayan observation there, Adam. ;)
Yeah, I thought the film took a rather novel approach to the idea of a modern Greenwich Village cult. No orgies or blood sacrifices, just a bunch of urbane, dried-up devil worshippers playing deadly games. We don't actually see how they occupy their time, which somehow makes it a little more unsettling. (What if they get freaky on the weekends, like in The Devil Rides Out?)
Other things I admire: its atmosphere of pervasive dread (how about that ending, huh?), the imaginative shadowplay (see what the director does with the dark at the end of a hallway), and the traditional good vs. evil morality (with Kim Hunter caught in the middle).
Adam, maybe you'd like the more literary scripts better: Isle of the Dead, The Body Snatcher, and Bedlam. They all star Boris Karloff, and are creepy and philosophical in just the right measures.
I've seen The Body Snatcher (which I liked--but mostly for Kaloff's 110-percent-effort performance), but I'll check the others out soon. So far, I Walked with a Zombie is my favorite Lewton.
If you like Lewton, don't miss Leopard Man, which has some of the scariest bits in the series. 7th Victim comes very close to revealing Lewton's morbid side, which eventually led to his demise.
NOTE: 7th victim also has a pre-Psycho shower scene!
derf snikduj...Reactionary!
The Devil Cult didn't just sit around... They sent hit men out to dispose of anyone who was a threat. The quietly urbane way they set about to control or kill their victims gives the film a strangled gentility... sort of like the politics of personal destruction served up in a thrice-shaken molitov cocktail hour.
derf snikduj...Reactionary!
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