The Seventh Victim is a 1943 American horror film directed by Mark Robson and starring Tom Conway, Jean Brooks, Isabel Jewell, and Kim Hunter.

Written by Charles O'Neal and DeWitt Bodeen, and produced by Val Lewton for RKO Radio Pictures, the film focuses on a young woman who stumbles on an underground cult of devil worshippers in Greenwich Village, New York City, while searching for her missing sister.

Bodeen revised the script, basing the story on a Satanic society meeting he attended in New York City and setting it as a prequel to Cat People (1942), with Conway reprising his role as Dr. Louis Judd.

Released on August 21, 1943, the film failed to garner significant income at the box office and received mixed reviews from critics, who found its narrative incoherence a primary fault.

It was later revealed that Robson and editor John Lockert had removed four substantial scenes from the final cut, including an extended conclusion.

Mary decides to leave the school to find her sister, who owns La Sagesse, a cosmetics company in New York City.

Upon arriving in New York, Mary finds that Jacqueline sold her cosmetics business eight months earlier to her assistant, Esther Redi.

Mary's investigation leads her to several individuals who knew Jacqueline, including her secret husband, attorney Gregory Ward, and a psychiatrist, Dr. Louis Judd.

Mary learns Jacqueline had been a patient of Judd's, seeking treatment for depression stemming from her membership in a Satanic cult called the Palladists, and her subsequent efforts to leave the group.

Mary tells Gregory and Jason what Esther told her and they resolve to locate Jacqueline and have her surrender herself to police for Irving's murder.

Simultaneously, Jason and Judd confront the Palladists, condemning them for their dedication to evil, and recite lines from the Lord's Prayer in response to Mr. Brun's (a high-ranking member of the cult) nihilistic philosophical explanation for their doctrine.

Jacqueline enters her own apartment and apparently hangs herself; Mimi hears the thud of the chair falling over as she leaves for the evening.

"[8] Critics have noted homosexual undercurrents running through the film,[9] particularly in Jacqueline's character and her relationship with Frances, a cult member who is an employee at the company she formerly owned.

While it could have easily fallen into the trap of using gay and lesbian signifiers to characterize its villains (i.e. homosexual = Satanist, as did Universal's The Black Cat in 1934), the film is much more complex than that.

[18] Mark Robson and John Lockert[20] made multiple edits to the film during post-production, according to Lewton and Bodeen, resulting in a slightly "disjointed" narrative.

[19] Lewton's son spoke about this in a 2003 interview: [My father's] scripts were very specific about set design, camera direction, and also what you usually left to one editor—dissolves, cuts, and so on.

It's a great ending, with the final scene taken out, but that last shot (when we hear the chair fall) needs to hold for another four or five seconds, just enough time to let it sink in.

Gregory and Mary go off together, leaving Jason standing before the restaurant's mural of Dante and Beatrice, making clear his failure as an artist and lover.

"[29] A critic from The Philadelphia Inquirer praised Brooks's performance as well as those of the rest of the cast, and described the film as "eerie, anything but cheery," noting that "director Mark Robson didn't miss many tricks calculated to send chills down the spine.

"[30] Writing for the Big Spring Daily Herald, Jerry Cahill similarly felt that "the suspense of the picture is well carried out by the crack performances.

"[31] A critic of the Republican Herald also praised the film for being "packed with a suspenseful action that builds from its quiet beginning to a hair-raising conclusion.

"[32] Grace Kingsley of the Los Angeles Times noted that "probably hardboiled mystery fans will be disappointed that none of the horrific rites are disclosed, but there are enough other chills and thrills to make up.

"[40] Time Out London also praised the film, calling it Robson's "masterpiece, a brooding melodrama built around a group of Satanists ... the whole thing is held together by a remarkably effective mix of menace and metaphysics—half noir, half Gothic.

"[41] In a retrospective review of the film in The New York Times, critic Caryn James wrote: "Despite its creaky plot, The Seventh Victim is one of Lewton's best movies, a triumph of style over sense."

"[42] Other historians and critics, including Joel Siegel and Laurence Rickels, cited the scene as a potential precursor to the infamous shower murder in Psycho.

[47] In July 2024, The Criterion Collection announced a forthcoming 4K/Blu-ray release of the film, as well as standalone Blu-ray and DVD editions, each as part of the double feature set paired with I Walked with a Zombie.

In The Seventh Victim, Judd recounts to a poet that he once knew a mysterious woman who was in fact a "raving lunatic" (referencing Irena Dubrovna, the protagonist of Cat People).