Response #4

The Night of the Hunter: Several Versions of Horror

       While the film The Night of the Hunter initially enters the genre of horror because of the murderous preacher, it would seem that the horror of the film comes in the way it presents various social structures. One, which was discussed in Laamanen’s article, is gender roles. Every aspect of Willa’s character and her interactions with the other characters is absolutely antifeminist. Her’s is the absolute submission to a patriarchal structure. The horror is her willingness to submit and her ultimate death because of it. The film only begins to rectify the flaws with Willa during the scene between the preacher and Ruby. Again the preacher manipulates and uses a submissive woman. The difference in this instance is that Ruby has Ms. Copper to support her. With Willa the only female support she had came from Icey, and Icey was the one who told her she needed a man in her life. During the Ruby scene, it would seem the movie is making a statement about the importance woman supporting each other in a society that is dominated by the male ego. By the ending the audience has been shown a full transformation between female submission to female independence and victory with Ms. Copper’s defeat of the preacher.

The next horror addressed by the film is the pursuit of money. The father murders and is in turn executed because of the money. Giving the money to his children only ends up putting them at risk. The mother is murdered by the preacher in his pursuit of the money. Nearly every unfortunate event within the film is a result of money. Unlike the gender issue, this conflict is never fully resolved in the film. Instead the film attempts to make a statement about the issue in the ending. During the preachers arrest, the boy goes into an emotional frenzy. He makes statements of regret about the preachers arrest and he relinquishes the money. Its as if the boy sympathizes with the preachers obsession with money as much as he sympathizes with the fear and suffering he and his sister have suffered in their fleeing the preacher. This scene illustrates the all consuming nature of the pursuit of money and the horrors which can result from it.

Another horror presented by the film is religion. Both the good and bad aspects of religion are established from the beginning to contrast each other and emphasize the horrifying side of it. There are the religious quotations and references from Ms. Copper, all of which can be linked to the bible or stories from the bible. Then there is the preachers view on religion which is completely up to his interpretation. The audience is shown that his religious base is completely made up when he is in prison with the father and says something like he and god decided how his religion operated. Additionally, the way in which he addresses god is almost as if he is talking to himself. The way that Ms. Copper’s religious references come from an actual source and the preachers is made up illustrates how religion can be used to justify whatever the imagination needs justified. In that way the preachers take on religion becomes another horrifying aspect to the film. 

At one point the film is able to blend two of the themes discussed to portray a kind of horror. In the wedding night scene the preacher uses religion to to belittle and shame Willa. What is horrifying is that religion became a tool which was used to take away a woman’s sexuality. Religion was used as an oppressor to feminine independence.

While The Night of the Hunter is a horror film, it is not only because of the psychopathic preacher. The way in which the film presents social influences on society are as equally horrifying as any serial murderer.