Besides cinematicattic.com, of course, flickchart.com is my favorite website. It combines two of some of my favorite things: movies and statistics. I use flickchart often to help me choose movies I should watch, and it’s highest recommended movie for me up until Tuesday was The Night of the Hunter. I’ve been wanting to watch it for some time now since I kept seeing it on many top movie lists, including The Internet Movie Database’s Top 250. So, luckily, Amazon Prime had it available for me to watch. The only things I knew about it was it was a film-noir from the 50s, it starred Robert Mitchum, and it is a Criterion selection.

I’ve been looking forward to this movie for quite awhile now, so I’m glad it was available for me. The best performance goes to Mitchum, for sure. He can sure play a psycho really well. I’ve never seen the original Cape Fear where he plays the psycho in that, but I imagine this role was very comparable to it. In The Night of the Hunter, he claims to be a preacher, but he’s really just a murderer and thief, and has the words “LOVE” and “HATE” tattooed on knuckles. It’s kind of weird to now know the origin of that. “Ever hear the story of left hand and right hand?”. Creepy…

Ever wonder where this famous tattoo originated? I thought so. Robert Mitchum! Weird, huh?

I really, really liked 90% of this movie. The whole movie was really suspenseful, and the last third turned into a chase film. The very last five minutes, however, turned it into a disappointment. Why would you completely shift this great, intense thriller into a feel-good Christmas movie? Who knows. Maybe I’m interpreting it wrong, but I saw what I saw.

Well, in the end, I would give a 16/17 to Mitchum’s performance, 14/17 to the style and look of the movie, and an 7/17 to the script because of the lame ending. Overall, 12/17.

I’d love to hear what you think of it, if you’ve not already seen it. It’s currently available on Amazon Prime.