The movie character that gave Stephen King “a thousand nightmares”
In the darkened realms of horror fiction, there are few names as significant in delivering spine-chilling terrors as Stephen King. Across five decades, King has crafted some of the most memorable pieces of horror fiction, delivering a body of work that has become eternally written into the history of literature and culture at large.
Whether in Carrie, The Shining or It, King proved his ability to create worlds of genuine darkness whilst also being able to imbue his characters with a deep-set humanity. This kind of reality makes King’s stories all the more unsettling, and as he explores the nature of evil and the possibility of the supernatural, he blurs the distinctions between reality and fantasy.
However, even the most masterful and macabre writers can still have their wits shaken out of them with fear, and though King has conjured up some of the most fear-inducing moments in the history of horror fiction, he once pointed out the movie character then instilled genuine horror within in heart and soul.
In a feature with EW, King once named his top ten fictional villains, and after drawing attention to Anton Chigurh from Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men, Big Brother from George Orwell’s 1984, Harry Potter’s Lord Voldemort and The Lord of the Rings’ Sauron, the author named a Robert Mitchum character as one of the most nightmare-inducing fictional creations.
Charles Laughton’s 1955 film noir thriller The Night of the Hunter received negative reviews upon its original release but has since been reappraised as one of the greatest movies ever made. Based on a 1953 novel of the same name by Davis Grubb and starring Mitchum alongside Shelley Winters and Lillian Gish, Laughton’s film tells of a serial killer (Mitchum) who pretends to be a preacher in order to obtain a fortune of cash from two children of a recently deceased father.
“The preacher who hounds two children through the pages of Davis Grubb’s Night of the Hunter,” King noted. “[He] has LOVE tattooed on the fingers of one hand and HATE on the fingers of the other. In the film version, Robert Mitchum gave him the face that caused a thousand nightmares.”
Mitchum indeed gave a terrifying performance as Reverend Harry Powell, a powerful combination of charming charisma and fearsome menace. The physical stature of the character with Mitchum fully in command helps to create an imposing villain in Laughton’s film, and evil seems to pour from every word he speaks, made even worse by his victim’s obliviousness to his true intentions.
His exterior might, after all, seem to be benevolent, using the guise of a kindly preacher. However, the audience knows that Powell is a man driven by violence and greed, which makes his manipulation all the more terrifying, a personality that left even Stephen King shaking in his boots.
Still, Powell’s fearsome qualities are all down to Mitchum’s unbridled talent as an actor, and he’s capable of transitioning between an approachable suaveness and a demented attitude of evil. From his captivating sermons to the quiet stalking of his victims, Mitchum’s Powell is a character that breathes unpredictability and terror.
After all, any character capable of putting the fear of God into one of horror’s most acclaimed authors is certainly one to steer clear of. Check out the trailer for The Night of the Hunter below to catch a glimpse of Reverend Harry Powell in action.
