‘I run to death,and death meets me as fast, and all my pleasures are like yesterday...’
Rosemary’s Baby, both the 1968 film and the 1967 novel upon which it is based, loom large over the cinematic landscape, particularly in the horror genre. The concept of a satanic cult has been done since, of course, but never in a way that is so chillingly mundane. It is the ordinariness of the devil worshippers in Rosemary’s Baby that makes the story so disquieting. Well, The Seventh Victim is not in the same league as Polanski’s masterwork, but it would be churlish to say that it wasn’t at least an influence…
Jacqeline Gibson (Jean Brooks) has gone missing. Her sister Mary (Kim Hunter) tracks her down to a rented room above an Italian restaurant in the New York district of Greenwich Village. Upon entering the room, Mary discovers that it is bare save for a single chair with a noose hanging above it. Mary teams up with local poet Jason (Erford Gage) in order to solve the mystery.
At a skinny 71 minutes, The Seventh Victim is uneven in its pacing, and sometimes confusing in its plot. That being said, it is astonishing that a film so nihilistic, so devoid of hope, was released at all in 1943 – particularly as Hollywood was still under the grip of the Hays Code.
Director Mark Robson worked on Citizen Kane, and went on to be twice nominated for Best Director at the Oscars, so there is clear pedigree here. Despite this, the film was a critical and commercial failure upon release, only being revaluated years later as its dark themes were more clearly understood.
The Seventh Victim is a film for horror completists only, but for those with an interest in the history and legacy of horror films, it should be essential viewing. A dark and twisted fairy tale that still has the power to shock.