Originally written 3/20/16
Night of the Hunter is a dark, eerie thriller
bookended by cheesy Leave It to Beaver-esque sequences. Robert Mitchum steals
the show as the creepy ex-con preacher. His character is one of the most
disturbing villains in film. His sheer levels of menace are still unsettling
some 61 years later. The cinematography is stunningly shadowy, and Mitchum is
often lit as an ominous silhouette. But the movie has a murky message about sex
and temptation, as well as a hammy supporting cast of hillbilly stereotypes that
really distracts from the story. At time the movie feels like a hardened
criminal wandered onto the set of the Beverly Hillbillies and started
disrupting all the cheerily glib 1950's TV antics. The ending drags on for too
long and is jarringly happy. Talk about forced happy endings. There's a really
creepy movie in here being held by clunky 50's filmmaking conventions. It is
worth seeing for Mitchum and the visuals alone, but the story itself is tonally
confused.
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