The Night of the Hunter

The Night of the Hunter (1955)
IMDB #175 [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048424/]

The Gist:
Kind of a contradicting film, equal parts art house and Hollywood convention. Fascinating throughout though, very suspenseful, the preacher has a very natural malevolent presence. I thought the ending felt a bit too warm and cozy with all its "oh the poor children" lines, and the moments of conflict were occasionally marred by the preacher becoming terribly slow all of a sudden. However, what it does well, it does really well. Rich noir artistic framing (like the picture above), strange risky editing and narrative choices, and an overall mythologizing of good and evil that culminates in an amazing scene with two characters singing different versions of the same hymn.