Classic Revival … ‘The Night of the Hunter’ (1955)

If you were to define “creepy” … how would you do it? Its likely that, depending on who’s being asked that question, the answer would vary immensely. For myself, “creepy” is rarely defined as something “scary” or grotesque. Having grown up watching monster movies and various forms of horror flicks, very little of that material affects me on any significant level. On the other hand, there are occasionally films that I come across that, perhaps even surprisingly, give me the heebie-jeebies.

The Night of the Hunter is one of those films. Directed by Charles Laughton, this film-noir/psychological horror film must have tested the limits of “creepiness” in the 50’s because even today its a chilling story of a man so screwed up in the head that he believes God is telling him to pursue his killing spree. Night of the Hunter was an early prelude to the popular serial killer films of today. For those who have seen these movie, you’d probably agree that its actually pretty cheesy by today’s standards. The dialogue spoken as its written and uber-melodramatic acting were par for the course back then, but its the story that makes this film so creepy … combined with Robert Mitchum’s performance.

Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) is a man who claims to be a preacher. He travels around on his killing spree, believing he’s being spoken to by God, doing God’s work and he looks for helpless widows to steal money from to continue funding his “mission.” Ben Harper has just robbed a bank, killing two men in the process. He makes his escape, but has only enough time to hide the money and make his two children swear not to tell, this way they’ll have money to live on during these times of the Great Depression. Once Ben is arrested, tried and hung for murder, the wandering Preacher Powell rolls into town claiming to have been “with” Ben in his final days. [He was, as a fellow prisoner.] Powell eventually sweet talks Ben’s widow into marrying him, but Powell’s motive is in collecting that stolen bank money. Ben’s son John is wise to Powell from the start and struggles to keep their secret and protect his younger sister Pearl (Shelley Winters) from the murderous Preacher Powell.

I imagine for most people my age, this film isn’t going to carry the same “creepiness” as I attribute to it … and most likely will laugh through most of the film. There are many elements of Night of the Hunter that simply don’t translate well into today’s idea of good cinema, but its still a great example of American cinema from the 50’s and should be appreciated for its daring attempt at a genre of storytelling that was rarely seen at that time.