Robert Mitchum personifies evil in this strange, dark, moody, lazy noir classic by Charles Laughton (the only English movie the famous actor ever directed).

This film is more about the ambiance of darkness then about a plot. Well, there is a plot and there are characters but they are generally just decorative pieces on a canvas that silhoutte's the characters both physically and psychologically.

A slow meandering and terrifying tale of a man who calls himself a priest and almost seems to believe it himself, finds out in prison about a man who has hidden some money in his house somewhere. The rest of the movie is about how the priest tries to get that money from the man's house, from his widow and the two adorable children.

The black and white picture is extraordinarily well filmed and features great night shots of all kinds of animals, lights on the water and light playing with the notion of silhouttes.

Night of the hunter may not be an experience in the intellectual power of cinema but it is quite an experience in the visual element of it.