7th Victim, The/Shadows in the Dark (1943)

Six people have broken a clandestine group's code of silence. The same six have died as a result. Now a new member of the group has gone missing. Will she meet the same fate? Chris Auty in Time Out Film Guide says: "The Seventh Victim is [Val Lewton's] masterpiece...a remarkably effective mix of menace and metaphysics -- half noir, half Gothic." Kim Hunter debuts as a schoolgirl whose search for her vanished sister unearths an urban lair of devil worshippers. Mark Robson directs the first of his five Lewton films, bringing dark foreboding to moments that include a much-noted pre-Psycho shower scene and a shocker of a subway encounter better experienced than read about here.

• drama
• horror