The darkest film of Val Lewton’s legendary string of offbeat low-budget horror flicks for RKO in the 40s. A bitter cocktail of Satan and suicide. A big black blanket to snuggle under for seventy-one minutes. In a shadow world New York City, a fresh-faced girl (Kim Hunter, in her first movie) leaves
boarding school to look for her crazy missing sister (Jean Brooks, pioneering the Bettie Page hairdo). The first half is a straight noir mystery in which she sleuths about the city with help from her sister’s husband (Hugh Beaumont) and a timid poet (Erford Gage). Things take a turn when they discover that her sister had ties to a devil-worshiping cult. The strange shower scene is the creepiest moment, then the bleak ending.
Mark Robson’s debut as a director. Tom Conway shows up as the same creepy psychiatrist character he played in (and who died in) Cat People from the previous year.