Editorials
‘The Night of the Hunter’: An Underseen Southern Gothic Masterpiece
In classic film communities, November becomes Noirvember, a month dedicated to celebrating and viewing classic noir films. Film noir is defined by its black and white visual style, unbalanced compositions, and an overall mood of menace and fatalism. Derived from hardboiled crime fiction that emerged during the Great Depression, film noir usually revolves around crime and greed. Though its exact definition and categorization tends to still be up for debate, it’s most commonly associated with the crime dramas of the 1940s.
If you’re venturing into noir this month, The Night of the Hunter should be at the top of the list. A fairy tale noir and southern Gothic masterpiece, The Night of the Hunter is a beautiful work of art as well as a chilling horror tale that has influenced many modern filmmakers.
Based on the 1953 novel of the same name by Davis Grubb, The Night of the Hunter tells of Reverend Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum), a self-appointed preacher and serial killer who marries gullible women and murders them for their money. When arrested for driving a stolen car, he learns that his cellmate stowed away a lot of money from a bank robbery, though he dies before divulging the loot’s location. When Powell leaves prison, he sets about wooing his cellmate’s widow and menacing the man’s children, who swore they’d never tell where dad hid the money.
Upon release in 1955, the film was a flop both commercially and critically. It was the directorial feature debut of Charles Laughton, who’d had an illustrious career as an actor that overshadowed this effort, and the failure ensured he never directed another feature again. It’s a damn shame, too. While critical appraisal has long since turned around in the decades post-release, The Night of the Hunter works as a standalone promise of what could have been.
In his debut, Laughton proved a master of composition and shadows. The German expressionism that’s a common trait of film noir is there, but Laughton uses it to create a visual fantasy told through the lens of the innocent. Nearly every frame a stunning work of art. Laughton balances the dreamlike fairy tale quality with Southern Gothic horror. It’s not just the visuals and mood that creates a chilling film, but the fact that it presents one of the greatest villains in cinematic history.
There’s a strong possibility that even if you haven’t seen this movie, the image of Reverend Harry Powell with his infamous H-A-T-E and L-O-V-E tattoos across his knuckles will look familiar. “Ah, little lad, you’re staring at my fingers. Would you like me to tell you the little story of right-hand/left-hand?” he asks young John Harper (Billy Chapin), in a façade of religious fanaticism and kind-heartedness. Underneath is a calculated killer, a sinister force of evil that stalks John and his sister Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce) relentlessly for the entire narrative. Mitchum’s bone-chilling portrayal, complete with Laughton’s framing of him in shadows, makes for one dangerous foe that deserves more recognition.
Over the years, consensus started to turn around on the film, and it began influencing modern filmmakers. There’s speculation that David Lynch paid tribute to the film’s first shot with the closing shot of The Elephant Man, both featuring narrators among the floating stars. The Coen brothers make good use of the film’s song “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” in multiple films of their own, and the famous “the Dude abides” catchphrase from The Big Lebowski is a spin on the film’s quote, “Children are man at his strongest. They abide.”
Above all, though, from a modern horror perspective, none have worn the film’s influence on their sleeves quite like Ari Aster.
The final shot of the treehouse in Hereditary is a direct homage to The Night of the Hunter. In an interview with Film School Rejects, he revealed that the stunning and eerie image of a corpse underwater was at the forefront of his mind when crafting a specific aftermath shot that occurs halfway through Hereditary. The Night of the Hunter permeates modern genre film even while remaining an underseen gem.
Laughton’s single directorial effort tests the boundaries of what film noir can be, making it a perfect selection for Noirvember. The film closes out on Christmas, making it a perfect seasonal treat as well. There’s no wrong time to seek this film out, though. Stunning cinematography by Stanley Cortez, a fantastic score by composer Walter Schumann, Mitchum’s dangerous villain that brings unrelenting chills, and Laughton’s firm grasp of visual style that defies simple genre categorization come together to make The Night of the Hunter a true masterpiece.
College kids, strippers and vampires—those were Donald P. Borchers’ only requirements when he approached Richard Wenk about writing and directing a movie for New World Pictures. As requested, Wenk cooked up Vamp (1986), a tailor-made blend of the decade’s teen movie craze as well as its horror boom.
Grim and earnest stories were still very much a part of the ’80s horror landscape, yet Vamp is something of a comedy. One difference between it and, say, Saturday the 14th, though, is the former avoids using schtick. Wenk’s movie proves that horror comedies also don’t have to subtract thrills from their recipes. Of course, it takes a minute before reaching that point; college antics and culture shocks preface this one macabre misadventure.
Vamp‘s initial setup is apt for a typical college-set, sex-driven comedy; to bribe their way into a fraternity house, two pledges (Chris Makepeace, Robert Rusler) go looking for some adult entertainment. Without wasting time on any further exposition, the characters embark on an all-in-one-night trip that quickly detours into terror.
To procure their elusive MacGuffin—a stripper willing to gyrate for some frat boys—Keith (Makepeace) and AJ (Rusler), plus a third wheel named Duncan (Gedee Watanabe), trade the safety of their remote college campus for the seediness of some unnamed city. The setting is recognizably L.A. by day, but as soon as night falls, downtown, along with the characters, slips into a kind of surreal universe. Director of photography Elliot Davis gave this early entry on his prolific résumé an unusual yet distinctive look; that Mario Bava-esque, magenta-green lighting is omnipresent, so much so that it’s almost its own character.
Chris Makepeace and Robert Rusler in Vamp
The faint comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours are merited, although not just because of Vamp’s distinguishing nighttime aesthetic. Save for the primary characters, the supporting roles in Wenk’s movie are also quite colorful and transactional in their behavior. The difference here, though, is the additional urge to ruin Keith and his friends at every turn. Some of that harm is humorous and tolerable enough, whereas the moment Vamp dishes out its first fatality, it’s abundantly clear how this movie qualifies as horror.
Vamp falls into that category of horror movie that reveals its genre with a scream rather than a series of whispers. The opening scene can function as a hint of what lies ahead—things are not at all what they appear to be—but otherwise, Wenk is more than happy to hold off on the horror. When that time does come, though, it catches the viewer off guard. In addition to the pure shock value is that sudden decision to upend the movie’s foremost feature. Or so it would seem.
If afraid of major spoilage, those new to Vamp would be wise to stop reading here. There’s just no skirting around the fact that the central fellowship in this buddy movie hits a serious snag when AJ is killed. That development causes the story to become more of a “long, bad night” journey for Keith and his romantic interest. So while Wenk scores points for subverting expectations, there is also a touch of sadness in his decision. Because if Vamp does anything well, it’s making the characters likable.
Something that comes easily to Vamp—and other teen horror movies from this same era—is its ability to invent young characters worth caring about, or at the very least, are interesting and not so immediately off-putting. More impressive is how Wenk did all this without actually fleshing out those characters. Still and all, Keith and his kind are a grade above cookie-cutter, and in some cases, aren’t completely devoid of growth.
Grace Jones in Vamp
Vamp appeals with an assorted cast of characters. No two are the same, nor are they operating on the same wavelength. The cinematically extroverted AJ, whose actor conveyed charm and vulnerability in near equal amounts, comes alive when he’s at his most undead. Makepeace then makes the chronically cautious Keith a sympathetic fellow, even as he’s more and more affected by the night’s bizarre events. Meanwhile, Duncan is indeed the designated loser of the whole bunch, but Watanabe still manages to humanize him. As a bonus, the role didn’t require him to pull a Long Duk Dong.
As for Dedee Pfeiffer, she is plain adorable as the mysterious After Dark server nicknamed “Amaretto”. She spends all night fixing her dress strap while at the same time trying to get Keith to remember how he knows her. As their offbeat romance grows, it becomes another highlight of this movie. Whether or not Pfeiffer’s character is really a vampire also creates some welcome tension in the story.
Like a lot of its contemporaries, Vamp went on to become a bit of a cult classic. That current status is determined by several factors, but without a doubt, the casting of Grace Jones is the most considerable. The image of her writhing on that unique-looking chair, a Keith Haring original, springs to mind whenever this movie is brought up.
Chris Makepeace, Billy Drago and Paunita Nichols in Vamp
Prior to that first display of unequivocal horror, local vampire queen Katrina (Jones) took to the stage and delivered a strip show like no other. One would expect nothing less from that renowned model and performance artist. By now reports of Jones’ tardiness on set are no secret, yet it’s also hard to deny her commitment to the part of Katrina. It was, in fact, Jones who took charge of her character’s appearance—on top of Haring painting her body and that now-iconic chair, she had Andy Warhol handle her costuming. And not too many actors could seize a room’s attention without saying a single line of dialogue.
In 2022, Vamp received a retrospective novelization from Encyclopocalypse. This literary union of preexisting source material—Wenk’s original screenplay—and new ideas from author Christian Francis amounts to a more comprehensive visit to the After Dark Club. The basic story there is no different than what’s shown on screen; however, Francis gets creative with the characters’ origins and designs, and he enhances a number of key scenes.
The novelization expands on the urban and social decay of the main setting, and supplies a background for the After Dark Club. Sandy Baron’s character, Katrina’s emcee and familiar, is given ample motivation for sticking around; up until the fiery end, he is loyal to his friend and former business partner “Squeak”, who looks like he was “fed through a combine harvester, and left as nothing more than a heap of mangled remains”. Then there is Billy Drago’s character Snow, the leader of a street gang called The Dragons. His reason for menacing Keith and AJ is more altruistic than in the movie; he and his peers act tough to scare off any potential food for the vampires.
Lisa Lyon in Vamp
If not for all the backstories, Francis’ Vamp would be a hell of a lot shorter. Instead, this tie-in read dives into how AJ met Keith—the orphaned Anthony Joseph hailed from a broken home back in Brooklyn—and how their friendship flourished over the years. Keith’s archership is no longer just an assumed part of his entire being; it’s a confidence-building extracurricular for a boy who got picked on before coming into the protection of the new kid in town. These supplemental, in-depth looks at the protagonists, plus their close connection, are maybe unnecessary. The movie already did a fair and concise job of addressing their platonic intimacy without the need for flashbacks and insights, specifically in that scene where AJ lays it all out as he sacrifices himself.
Where the novelization gets off course is its approach to the minor characters. Intermittently backstorying the likes of Katrina’s indentured servants, Seko (Leila Hee Olsen) and Vlad (Brad Logan), ends up disturbing the flow of the writing. Was it absolutely essential that readers know Vlad was the Grand Duke of the House of Romanov, or how Snow’s accomplice Maven (Paunita Nichols) became so dentally challenged? No, not really. However, one’s mileage with these random biographies may vary.
The novelization is a more substantial experience, but for a movie like Vamp, less is more. And as plentiful as they are, it never simply coasts on its campy charms, either. The character work sits comfortably in that realm between cursory and meticulous, the script is sharper than first realized, and Greg Cannom’s vampire makeup is straightforward yet effective. Most of all, the movie didn’t squander its out-of-the-box concept. Richard Wenk made his vision of a “comic nightmare in which just about anything that can go wrong does” come true, and it is very enjoyable.
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