History Film / TheNightOfTheHunter

* SexIsEvilAndIAmHorny: Harry watches the burlesque dancer at the beginning of the film with an expression that is equal parts lust and loathing. The knife poking through his pants isn't subtle. After marrying the children's mother, he pointedly refuses to sleep with her, and mocks her desire.

[[caption-width-right:350:''"Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms / Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms."'']]

[[caption-width-right:350:''"Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms,"'']]
''"Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms."'']]

[[caption-width-right:350:''"Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms."'']]

* SinisterSwitchblade: Just about the most sinister one ever. Harry Powell's favorite weapon, which he likes to flick open to intimidate little children, or when he's about to slit his wife's throat, or when he's getting a SexIsEvilButIAmHorny feeling.

* MosesInTheBullrushes: John and Pearl arrive at Rachel's farm in a drifting rowboat. The other children in her care even lampshade the

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* TheMusical: It is not, strictly-speaking, a musical in the classic definition, but music is a key element of the narrative nonetheless, usually in the form of hymns various character sing (that all seem to align with the plot in some way).

The setting is rural West Virginia during TheGreatDepression. Mitchum plays Harry Powell, a charismatic, mentally disturbed itinerant [[SinisterMinister preacher]] and [[SerialKiller serial murderer]] who one day gets married to Willa Harper (Shelley Winters), a newly widowed mother of two. Willa's previous husband Ben (Creator/PeterGraves) has just been hanged for robbing a bank and killing two men in the process, and Powell -- who'd learned about the robbery while in prison with Ben -- is hoping to get his hands on the hidden money. And then it gets really messed-up. Creator/LillianGish, a huge star in the silent movie days who mostly did character roles after talkies came in, stars as Rachel, the CoolOldLady who defends the children from Powell.

* MeaningfulName: The Spoons (the wife's name is Icey), who sell ice cream.

** John Harper, although even he has his crazy moments. Mr. Spoon sometimes has moments, but his wife is swift to fix ''that''.

* HeroicVow: John has sworn not to tell anyone where the stolen money is, and has to remind Pearl of this frequently. [[spoiler:The finale reveals this is a pointed subversion: all John had to do all along was return the money to the police and Powell wouldn't have been a threat. Keeping the secret caused the deaths of at least two people, including John's mother.]] The movie seems to be trying to point out just how shitty it was for John's father to put that burden on his young son in the first place, including making him swear, and insisting that he is now the man of the house who has to make the decisions.

* KnowNothingKnowItAll: Icey Spoon lives her life thinking she knows everything, so she's certain that the best man Willa Harper can settle for is that nice Revered Howell.

* StrawMisogynist: Harry Powell really hates women to a startling degree. He regularly kills them, and while he persecutes both John and Pearl, he is openly abusive to Pearl, including slapping her at one point but politely insidious to John. When Rachel Cooper asks him where John and Pearl's mother is when he claims that he is their father, instead of saying that she's dead, he says that she ran off with another man (during prayer meeting no less), and in the finale he refers to Rachel and her makeshift orphanage as "whores of Babylon".

* WhyDidYouMakeMeHitYou: "Oh, look, you made me lose my temper." Then again, by this point in the film, the audience already knows that Pearl did not deserve to be slapped, and that Harry is one of the most AxCrazy psychopaths in anything ever.

* SerialKiller: [["Twenty-five wives!" "And he killed every last one of them!"]]

* SerialKiller:
[[spoiler:-->Walt Spoon: Twenty-five wives!]]
[[spoiler:-->Icey Spoon: And he killed every last one of them!]]

** [[spoiler:-->Walt Spoon: Twenty-five wives!]]
** [[spoiler:-->Icey Spoon: And he killed every last one of them!]]

** -->[[spoiler:Walt Spoon: Twenty-five wives!]]
** -->[[spoiler:Icey Spoon: And he killed every last one of them!]]

* LieBackAndThinkOfEngland: Mrs. Spoon, holding forth at the church picnic about how Willa's marriage to John "wasn't love, that was just [[UnusualEuphemism flapdoodle]]":

* SerialKiller: [[spoiler:Walt Spoon: Twenty-five wives! Icey Spoon: And he killed every last one of them!]]

-->-- '''Reverend Harry Powell'''

* OnlySaneMan: John Harper, although even he has his crazy moments. Mr. Spoon sometimes has moments, but his wife is swift to fix ''that''.

One of the all-time classics of American cinema, and Creator/CharlesLaughton's [[OneBookAuthor sole film as a director]]. Also the inspiration for the ''Music/ThirtySecondsToMars'' song of the same name.

-->"When you've been married to a man forty years, you know all that don't amount to a hill of beans. I've been married to my Walt that long, and I swear in all that time I just lie there thinking' about my canning."

Probably Creator/RobertMitchum's best and most iconic performance, and definitely his creepiest (save, possibly, for ''Film/CapeFear''), was in this suspense-horror film from 1955. This is the one where he has "Love" and "Hate" [[KnuckleTattoos tattooed across his knuckles]].

* TheyLookJustLikeEveryoneElse: Harry Powell is either this or a DevilInPlainSight, depending on how sensitive your {{Evildar}} is. To all appearances, a charming and folksy preacher and the best stepfather a KidHero could ever want. Actually a KnifeNut TheBluebeard SerialKiller.

-> ''Ah, little lad, you're starin' at my fingers. Would you like me to tell you the little story of Right Hand-Left Hand - the story of good and evil?...H-A-T-E! It was with this left hand that old brother Cain struck the blow that laid his brother low...L-O-V-E...The right hand, friends! The hand of love...These fingers, dear hearts, is always a-warrin' and a-tuggin', one against the other.''

-->Hing, hang, hung\\

See the robber swing...

* {{Grimmification}}: Notably the bible verses and children's songs used to eerie effect. Charles Laughton indeed admitted that he was going for a kind of creepy fairy-tale approach, calling it a twisted Mother Goose tale.

* KidsAreCruel: The local children taunt John and Pearl with a nasty singsong after their father is hanged. (''Hing hang hung / Look what the hangman done...'')

* SoundtrackDissonance: ''Leanin', leanin', safe and secure from all alarm...''

* RhetoricalQuestionBlunder: After Powell tells Mrs. Spoon that Willa "ran away from home", Mrs. Spoon (in her usual false moralism) ponders out loud what on Earth possessed Willa for her to abandon her children. Powell, without missing a beat, just answers "Satan!".

Probably Creator/RobertMitchum's best-known performance was in this extremely creepy suspense-horror film from 1955 (well, this and ''Film/CapeFear''). This is the one where he has "Love" and "Hate" [[KnuckleTattoos tattooed across his knuckles]].

* CreepyChildrenSinging: After Ben's execution, the local children taunt John with this:

Hung, hang, hing

The setting is rural West Virginia during TheGreatDepression. Mitchum plays Harry Powell, a charismatic, mentally disturbed [[SinisterMinister preacher]] and [[SerialKiller serial murderer]] who one day gets married to Willa Harper (Shelley Winters), a newly widowed mother of two. Willa's previous husband Ben (Creator/PeterGraves) has just been hanged for robbing a bank and killing two men in the process, and Powell -- who'd learned about the robbery while in prison with Ben -- is hoping to get his hands on the hidden money. And then it gets really messed-up. Creator/LillianGish, a huge star in the silent movie days who mostly did character roles after talkies came in, stars as Rachel, the CoolOldLady who defends the children from Powell.