Although most of the themes are left to imagination, as usual in any Val Lewton horror production, I surrender to the moody atmosphere director Mark Robson sets up. This was indeed a film ahead of its time, in its depiction of devil worshipers not as strange entities or mad caricatures, but as any rather normal person with desires of success. Two horror masterpieces came to my mind while watching this, Psycho and Rosemary’s baby, both surprisingly melded in an excellent shower scene, in which the shadow of a lady with a hat looks very much like a horned satanic figure.