Beware Night of the Hunter

I've been a little light on the movie watching the last few weeks. Been pretty busy, but I managed to sneak in a handful.

I remember that I watched Hellboy when it first came out on DVD, but to be honest, I didn't remember much about it. I didn't remember that John Hurt played old guy Broom, I didn't remember that there was a new sidekick (sorry Agent Myers, you made no lasting impression), and I didn't remember any of the ending. At all.
So, like any good fanboy would, I bought a copy. You know, because it's a comic book thingy, and I should support that and stuff. So I watched it again and it's really not too shabby. I was pleasantly surprised by most of it (it helped that I forgot so much of it) and thought the special effects were quite well done. I really only watched it again because I want to go see the sequel this summer, and I wanted a referesher. This movie doesn't really work on a believable semi-real level like say, Batman Begins, it only really works when viewed through a true comic book adventure prism. I can't imagine any actor other than Ron Perlman playing this part, and I liked Selma Blair, too. Not great, not bad, but a solid C+.

So I've always meant to watch Night of the Hunter, and lo and behold, it was on Turner Classic Movies last week. So I TiVo'd it and gave it a watch. One of my favorite things on TCM is a segment they call "The Essentials." They have somebody like renaissance woman Carrie Fisher or critic Molly Haskel on to chat with host Robert Osbourne's corpse about their favorite movies as a segue into watching it. Usually it's someone with a little Hollywood cache, someone who might not be my favorite actor/director/producer/writer but they're generally respectable.

So to introduce Night of the Hunter is... wait for it... Rose McGowan.
I mean... really? Rose McGowan? On The Essentials? Yep, she's co-hosting all month.

What, was Joyce DeWitt busy?

Brian Austin Green was booked?

Yeesh.

So Osbourne and McGowan are foaming at the mouth about this "Essential", when McGowan says "It's not subtle..."

One of the 'Charmed' sisters says it's not subtle? The eye-candy from Scream says it's not subtle? The chick that used to date Marilyn Manson, the girl from Planet Terror who had a machine gun for a leg says it's not subtle?

Uh, oh.

(now to be fair, I liked Planet Terror and Scream...)

But I digress.

Night of the Hunter was awful. McGowan was right. Not subtle, in fact, not good, not cohesive, not well written, not well directed, certainly not well acted, and absolutely not entertaining.

Robert Mitchum was chewing the scenery, and not in a good way. Shelly Winters gave a shrill, one-note performance on par with most high school actresses I had the, ahem, pleasure to work with in my teens. The script was just dreadful and it seemed as if the director had no idea what he word 'continuity' meant. I have no idea why this film is considered an 'Essential'. Bleh. Double bleh.

If I had the choice to watch this film again or to eat a bucketful of cancer, I'd have to flip a coin. D---. (The only reason I don't give it an F is because Lillian Gish did a respectable job.)

So far the Summer of 1000 Movies (or S1000M) looks like this:

1. Monsturd D-
2. Zodiac C+
3. Southland Tales F
4. Sunshine A-
5. Alien A
6. Payback (director's cut) D-
7. Severance B-
8. Hellboy C+
9. Night of the Hunter D---