WATCH PARTY: The Night of the Hunter (1955) Charles Laughton @ Jordan Newby

Horror and thriller fans, I haven't seen this before, but I have heard that Robert Mitchum's Rev. Powell is one of the most terrifying movie villains ever. I'm scared out of my wits!

RUNTIME: 93 minutes

SYNOPSIS (via Criterion): The Night of the Hunter—incredibly, the only film the great actor Charles Laughton ever directed—is truly a stand-alone masterwork. A horror movie with qualities of a Grimm fairy tale, it stars a sublimely sinister Robert Mitchum as a traveling preacher named Harry Powell (he of the tattooed knuckles), whose nefarious motives for marrying a fragile widow, played by Shelley Winters, are uncovered by her terrified young children. Graced by images of eerie beauty and a sneaky sense of humor, this ethereal, expressionistic American classic—also featuring the contributions of actress Lillian Gish and writer James Agee—is cinema’s most eccentric rendering of the battle between good and evil.

BLURBS:
"One of the most frightening of movies." - Roger Ebert

"One of the great movie horror tales, with one of the greatest of all movie villains." - Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune

"Though purely homegrown, Hunter contains no social critique -- the issues are elemental, the morality biblical, the trials Homeric. In terms of cinematic texture, it's a hound from hell." - Michael Atkinson, The Village Voice

"It is doubtful that you will ever hear the old hymn, 'Learning,' again without recalling the gaunt, flapping figure of Preacher Powell as he lams it out in the dark night -- to the terror of the listening youngsters." - Los Angeles Times