Val Lewton is justly remembered as a B film producer who revolutionized the industry's approach to horror movies. Legend holds that Lewton doused the lights in a crowded meeting room, and instructed his production staff to invest their projects with the same imagined demons that run rampant in the dark of people's minds. Whether or not this actually happened is peripheral. The Lewton approach -- sustaining suspense through implicated horror rather than graphic shocks -- crept beyond the fright film genre, finding its proper place as a key ingredient of film noir. The intriguing interplay of light and shadow, analogous of the way good and evil are dependent on one another for existence, became the very thing that foreign filmmakers maintained was the crux of America's "dark cinema," film noir. The 7th Victim, an unsettling story of Satan worship and reclamation, is saturated with these qualities. Again and again, fleetingly cheery scenes give way to encroaching darkness. Otherwise safe streets and hallways seem gripped by blackness and disturbing silences. The implied dread of Kim Hunter, peering breathlessly into a darkened corridor, searching for some sign of the diminutive detective who's been swallowed by its cavernous gloom, makes for one of the greatest scare scenes in cinema. The pall of this bleak ambience is very much the work of cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca. In a career with its origins in silent cinema, Musuraca was an intuitive master of atmospheric lighting, best-remembered for his film noir work. He'd shot the B classic that many point to as the very first film noir, Stranger on the Third Floor, starring Peter Lorre. For Lewton he'd photographed Cat People, Ghost Ship and Bedlam. Out of the Past, The Spiral Staircase and The Fallen Sparrow are impeccable examples of lighting and composition. The 7th Victim was the directorial debut of former editor Mark Robson. Like his compatriot, Robert Wise, he'd risen from the editing room to launch a successful career as a feature director. Though he graduated to big-budget A films, such as The Harder They Fall, The Bridges at Toko-Ri and Peyton Place, he never surpassed what he'd accomplished for Lewton. Jean Brooks is haunting as the tormented beauty seduced by satanists. Tom Conway strangely repeats his Dr. Louis Judd character from Cat People without explanation. Hugh Beaumont and Kim Hunter each turn in effective portrayals as does Evelyn Brent, delivering an intimidating, caustic performance, especially in a shadowy shower scene which oddly foreshadows Psycho and its endless stream of filmic homages. For those in tune with its languorously spooky tenor, the film's ending is still a kick in the stomach undiminished by one's exposure to subsequent, similarly-themed movies. Lewton's contributions to screen horror are undeniable. All of his films receive our heartiest recommendation. Below we've profiled a pair worth picking up at your earliest convenience: The Leopard Man (1943) Director Jacques Tourneur and cameraman Nick Musuraca transform an essentially arid New Mexico setting into one of claustrophobic terror. The rampage of an escaped black leopard (or perhaps a murderous madman) provides for some of the most chilling scenes in any Lewton film. Especially riveting is a young girl's shadow-bound trek home from a grocer. Acting: A Atmosphere: A+ Fun: A Isle of the Dead (1945) Boris Karloff is a hard-nosed, superstitious Greek army officer, stranded on a plague-ridden isle with a bedraggled band of infectees. Boris believes the plague is spread by a vampire in their midst, and sets about determining who among them is the bloodsucker. One victim's fear of premature burial is parlayed into one of the eeriest scenes in any Lewton film. Acting: A Atmosphere: A+ Fun: B+