His horror was low budget, high concept

The Val Lewton Horror Collection

Warner Home Video, $60 for

the set; $20 each

AFTER RKO took a financial bath with the commercial failures of Orson Welles’ landmark 1941 film, “Citizen Kane,” and his 1942 drama, “The Magnificent Ambersons,” the studio decided to recoup its losses by producing low-budget horror films, a genre that was extremely popular.

While Universal concentrated on monster movies like “Dracula,” “Frankenstein” and “The Wolf Man,” RKO went a different route. It hired Russian-born Val Lewton, an intellectual pulp novelist who had worked as a story editor for “Gone With the Wind” producer David O. Selznick. And from 1942 to 1946, Lewton turned out a series of brilliantly conceived psychological horror films that generally were shot in 18 days on re-dressed sets from other RKO productions. As long as he kept the film on budget, the studio gave Lewton a free hand.

Cat People

Jacques Tourneur had worked as a second-unit director for Selznick -- he met Lewton in 1935 when Tourneur directed the storming-of-the-Bastille sequence in “A Tale of Two Cities” -- and when Lewton formed his unit at RKO, he invited Tourneur to direct for him.

Their first collaboration was this 1942 masterpiece starring feline French actress Simone Simon as a Serbian fashion designer in New York who believes she can transform herself into a cat. Ironically, one of Lewton’s big phobias was his fear of cats.

Kent Smith plays her husband; Jane Randolph is Smith’s co-worker, who loves him; and the beautiful black panther is played by Dynamite. Mark Robson, who would direct several Lewton productions, edited “Cat People.”

Extras: Fact-filled commentary with historian Greg Mank, plus excerpts from a phone interview with Simon.

The Curse of the Cat People

In 1944, RKO demanded a sequel to “Cat People.” Though Lewton fought fang and claw, he finally relented. The result, though, isn’t quite a sequel. Smith and Randolph’s characters have been married for eight years, and they have an imaginative, lonely 6-year-old daughter, Amy (a remarkable Ann Carter). Simon reprises her “Cat People” role, though now she is Amy’s sweet imaginary friend.

Gunther von Fritsch, a maker of documentaries and short films, was chosen by Lewton to direct but was soon replaced because of his slow work pace. Stepping in was the late Robert Wise, then an editor at RKO with directorial ambitions, who until then had been “Curse’s” editor.

Extras: Commentary with Mank and Simon.

I Walked With a Zombie

This 1943 romantic horror film is considered Lewton and Tourneur’s finest achievement. “Zombie” is a clever, inspired retelling of “Jane Eyre” set on a sugar cane plantation on a small Caribbean island, where most of the natives practice voodoo. Frances Dee stars as a young Canadian nurse who travels to the island to take care of the wealthy plantation owner’s (an underrated Tom Conway) mentally damaged wife -- who may or may not be a zombie.

Extras: Enthusiastic commentary with British film historians Kim Newman and Steve Jones.

The Leopard Man

Lewton and Tourneur’s last film together is a delicious 1943 adaptation of a Cornell Woolrich story about a serial killer preying on women in New Mexico. Though the authorities believe the killer is a black panther (played by Dynamite of “Cat People” fame) that escaped during a publicity stunt at a nightclub, a publicist (Dennis O’Keefe) is certain that the killer is a man pretending to be the panther. Margo also stars.

The Seventh Victim

Mark Robson moved from editing Lewton’s productions to directing with this creepy, dark 1943 thriller that explores Satanism. Kim Hunter, in her film debut, plays a young woman who leaves her boarding school after she discovers that her beautiful, rich sister (Isabel Jewell) has disappeared. When she goes to Manhattan to try to find her, she learns her sister has become involved with a group of upper-class devil worshipers.

The film’s classic shower sequence perhaps inspired Alfred Hitchcock 17 years later in “Psycho.”

Extras: A compelling documentary on Lewton’s legacy and commentary from film historian Steve Haberman.

The Ghost Ship

Probably the least known of the Lewton productions, this 1943 thriller directed by Robson was withdrawn from circulation for half a century because of a plagiarism suit that Lewton and RKO lost in court.

Veteran actor Richard Dix (“Cimarron”) gives his best performance as a ship captain losing his mind.

The Body Snatcher

Boris Karloff joined the Lewton unit, affectionately called “the snake pit” by its members, with this horrifying 1945 adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson story about grave robbers going to grisly lengths to supply bodies for a doctor’s classes. Wise directed; the film marked the last on-screen pairing of Karloff and Bela Lugosi.

Extras: Informative commentary with Wise and Haberman.

Isle of the Dead

Karloff stars again for Lewton in this eerie 1945 thriller directed by Robson. Set in 1912 in war-torn Greece, “Dead” finds several diverse people trapped in quarantine because of an outbreak of the plague on a small island used primarily as a burial ground.

Bedlam

Lewton’s last film for RKO, this 1946 period thriller -- inspired by “The Rake’s Progress,” a suite of engravings by William Hogarth -- boasts a masterfully vile performance by Karloff as the cruel head of an insane asylum in 18th century London who gets his comeuppance. Robson directed.

“Bedlam” was a critical and commercial failure and ended Lewton’s reign as the horrormeister at RKO. He made just three more films, all unsuccessful, and died of a heart attack in 1951 at age 46.

Extras: Trivia-filled commentary with historian Tom Weaver.