A religious fanatic marries a gullible widow whose young children are reluctant to tell him where their real daddy hid $10,000 he'd stolen in a robbery.
Ignored for a long time, this film is now impossible to ignore. Mitchum is magnetic.
The result ranks as one of the greatest movie monsters of all time in a film that remains as powerful as it is unique.
Charles Laughton's superlative film (released in a newly restored version) fits somewhere between Southern Gothic horror, crime thriller, kids' movie and Depression-era morality fable.
A gripping, complex chiller.
A perennially unsettling masterpiece from which modern chillers could learn much.
Few films since have proved so widely iconic and influential.
Still great after all these years.
General release. Check local listings for show times.
RSS feed of Cinema reviews