THE WEDDING NIGHT, THE ANTICIPATION, THE KISS, THE KNIFE, BUT ABOVE ALL…THE SUSPENSE!
In the Deep South, a serial-killing preacher hunts two young children who know the whereabouts of a stash of money.
Though now considered a classic and one of the greatest American films ever made, the movie-going public stayed away at the time of its release, and the critics were baffled by it. Chares Laughton had been a famous actor on stage and screen for decades, but this was the only film he ever directed, remarking that "It’s really a nightmarish sort of Mother Goose tale we are telling.” You also have Robert Mitchum, playing against his usual cool film noir hero type as not just a villain, but as a monstrous fool, cartoonish and cowardly in between bouts of menace. THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER dared to present a Southern Gothic expressionistic fantasy that combined horror and comedy while easing us down a river of nightmare logic into a timeless tale of LOVE and HATE. (STEVEN LANDRY)