Of Val Lewton's low-budget horror films, made with directors Tourneur et al, Barry Gifford writes, "The light is always hazy, the black not quite black but with an opaqueness that makes you strain to see more clearly. The effect is like looking through a keyhole and being shocked by a cold fingertip on your neck...Like Cat People, The Leopard Man, a shadow drama set in New Mexico, depends heavily on anthropomorphic suggestion. A few scenes, such as one where the young virgin sits alone at night in a cemetery waiting for her lover-to-be while an escaped black circus leopard prowls the grounds, compare favorably to the earlier cat epic, but the real thrills in this are in the mystery. It's actually a good whodunit and the results are not entirely academic. (That's a joke, as you'll see.) The Penitente Parade at the end is as weird a procession as anything ever filmed. Lewton and Tourneur knew precisely how to make the innocent and obvious seem strange and unknown."