My ill-advised endeavor to watch the top 200 horror movies of all time, plus 100 additions, in order to determine a definitive (read: completely subjective) Top 100 continues.

Mark Robson’s 1943 horror-noir follows a naive young woman, Mary Gibson (Kim Hunter), as she searches New York’s Greenwich Village for her older sister Jacqueline (Jean Brooks), a business owner who has gone missing under mysterious circumstances. After the private detective (Lou Lubin) Mary enlists is killed, she turns to a group of new acquaintances she’s made during her search—Jacqueline’s secret husband, Gregory Ward (Hugh Beaumont), her likewise secret psychiatrist, Dr. Judd (Tom Conway, reprising his role from 1942’s Cat People), and a young struggling poet named Jason Hoag (Erford Gage). Together, this motley crew discovers a cult of Satanists operating in the Village. What hold do the Pallidists have over the recondite Jacqueline?

The film is another richly pondered work of nihilism from producer Val Lewton. Its shadowy images are gorgeous and create a strong sense of oppression and hopelessness. The score is understated and persuasive, and it matches the film’s tone perfectly, going so far as to end on a minor note, the first Hollywood film score to do so. The acting is strong in most instances, with the exception of the flat performance from Jean Brooks as the (supposedly) enigmatic Jacqueline. What I found lacking, however, was any sense of plot cohesion. We move lackadaisically from scene to scene, wherein a conversation will be had and very little gained, and then we move on. It isn’t very compelling, and it struggles to propel the viewer (this one, at least) through to the mystery’s solution. The tacked on romance is downright confounding.

I like it pretty well, and I suspect that if I didn’t have other better Val Lewton productions to compare it to—Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie—I would have more praise for it. But for me—ymmv, I know it has a robust cult film fanbase—it fell a little flat.