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The only thing better than a free thing is more of that free thing. This month, Amazon’s ad-supported streamer Freevee is adding dozens of new titles to its existing library of thousands, and no matter your choice (or choices), Freevee titles are available for free on the platform with no additional membership required, so you can watch without an additional hit to the bank account this holiday season!

Take a tour through both the classic and current this December, including the 1950s classic film noir “The Night of the Hunter,” the queer history classic “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,” and the complete series collection of “Night Court,” “The Waltons,” and more.

Once you brush up on your history, catch up with the contemporaries, such as the beloved sci-fi series “Fringe”, the animated hit “Hotel Transylvania,” and the superhero black comedy “Kick-Ass.”

Check out The Streamable’s...

Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter is so loaded with neurotic symbology that you can attach nearly any meaning to it, and that’s the source of its uneasy, primordial power. In 1955, it might’ve been logical to assume that Laughton and critic turned screenwriter James Agee, working from David Grubb’s novel, were intending the film as an allegory for McCarthyism. After all, the villain, Reverend Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum), cannily exploits people’s panic in order to line his pockets, turning them on one another so as to distract them from the true evildoings being committed.

Like those in the grip of the second Red Scare, most of Harry’s victims are easily exploited because they willingly forfeit individual judgment in the presence of reassuringly unquestioned leadership. As in other McCarthyism parables (most obviously Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers), only the children and...

Killer Collectibles highlights five of the most exciting new horror products announced each and every week, from toys and apparel to artwork, records, and much more.

Here are the coolest horror collectibles unveiled this week!

Godzilla & Godzilla Raids Again Novelizations from University of Minnesota Press

First published in Japan in 1955, the original novelizations of Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again will be released in English for the first time on October 3 via University of Minnesota Press.

Jeffrey Angles, professor of Japanese at Western Michigan University, has newly translated the original material written by Shigeru Kayama, who conceived the initial story for Godzilla.

The two young adult novellas are being published together in one 256-page book, which is available to pre-order in paperback for $17.41 and and e-book for $9.99.

Scooby-Doo Play Set from Mezco Toyz

Mezco Toyz has announced a Scooby-Doo Friends & Foes box set as part of its 5 Points line of retro-style 3.75” scale action figures.

There are fewer joys in filmmaking than successfully pulling off an ambitious movie trick. For example, in his sci-fi classic "The Thing," director John Carpenter hired a double-amputee actor to stand in during the famous defibrillation scene, convincing viewers that Richard Dysart's character had his arms bitten off. The CGI-averse Christopher Nolan similarly orchestrated the zero-gravity hallway fight in "Inception" via massive centrifuge-style rotating sets, earning the film a Best Visual Effects Oscar. But some of the most marvelous movie illusions didn't require elaborate constructions. In fact, one of the most exemplary images of classic cinema was nothing more than a trick of the eye.

Shamefully, "The Night of the Hunter" is Charles Laughton's only feature film as director due to its poor reception at the time. A noir thriller based on the novel of the same name by Davis Grubb, the 1955 movie is now widely considered a true classic.

Charles Laughton’s sole directorial effort, the 1955 suspense classic The Night of the Hunter is getting a modern remake from Universal Pictures, according to Variety. Amy Pascal’s (Spider-Man: Far From Home) Universal Pictures-based banner Pascal Pictures will produce along with Peter Gethers. The screenplay will be written by Matt Orton, best known for the Nazi-hunter film Operation Finale, based on Davis Grubb’s 1953 novel.

The original film is iconic, and Robert Mitchum’s portrayal of newly released prison convict Harry Powell is one of the greatest villains of the silver screen. This is the film which introduced the hand tattoos Love and Hate and the biblical battle fought just below the knuckles. It is the story of good and evil that goes back to when “Cain struck the blow that laid his brother low.” The inked-fingers had “veins that run straight to the soul of man.”

The book and...

Charles Laughton’s iconic 1955 serial killer thriller “Night of the Hunter” is getting a remake from Universal Pictures. The news was first reported by Variety. The studio has tapped “Operation Finale” screenwriter Matt Orton to pen the script, which is believed to be a contemporary reimagining of the storyline and not a period piece. Amy Pascal is producing the project through her production banner Pascal Pictures. Additional producers include Peter Gethers and Jay Polidoro, the latter of whom is Universal’s senior vice president of production. Pascal recently had a major hit with Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women,” which grossed over $200 million worldwide and picked up Oscar nominations for Best Picture and more. Universal is coming off box office success for genre title “The Invisible Man.”

The first iteration of “Night of the Hunter” was Davis Grubb’s 1953 novel of the same name. Film critic turned screenwriter James Agee adapted...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSPaul Thomas Anderson on set of Punch-Drunk LovePaul Thomas Anderson is set to return to his hometown of San Fernando Valley—last seen in his 2002 Punch-Drunk Love—with a 1970s-set high school movie, which will follow a student who is also a successful child actor. Recommended VIEWINGCult director Richard Stanley returns from his 25-year hiatus from directing narrative films with this his Nicolas Cage-led H.P. Lovecraft adaptation Color Out of Space, which now has a rapturous trailer. Stanley is also currently in the early stages of developing an adaptation of Lovecraft's The Dunwich Horror. We are very fond of Spanish filmmaker Oliver Laxe’s oneiric cinema, thus we are completely taken by the trailer for his forthcoming Fire Will Come, which premiered in Cannes. An entirely engrossing trailer for Blumhouse’s reinvention of H.G. Wells The Invisible Man,...

By Hank Reineke

Though heavyweights Columbia and Universal produced as many serials as Republic Pictures from 1929-1956, the latter studio is generally best known for its exciting sound-era chapter-plays. Universal and the less widely known Mascot Pictures were in the game the earliest; both studios began releasing their sound serials in 1929. Mascot would only last six years or so. Universal – choosing to concentrate exclusively on the production of feature films – effectively got out of the serial business in 1946. Republic and Columbia hung on to the production of chapter-plays the longest; they released their final serials in 1955 and 1956, respectively.

Republic wasn’t only a serials factory. The studio was in the low budget feature filmmaking business as well, busily churning out a dizzying array of westerns, adventure pictures, and mysteries. They would test the box-office potentials of the horror film market during the 1940s with limited success. As a second-tier “Poverty Row” studio,...

Robot roll call! This also-ran robotic fantasy from the 1950s is precisely the kind of movie one would expect from Republic, a two-fisted anti-Commie tract for juveniles. The studio comes up with an impressive robo-hero, but short-changes us when it come time for action thrills. Still, as pointed out in Richard Harland Smith’s new commentary, Tobor filled the the kiddie hunger for sci-fi matinees, at least until Robby the Robot came along.

Tobor the Great

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1954 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 77 min. / Street Date September 12, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Charles Drake, Karin Booth, Billy Chapin, Taylor Holmes, Steven Geray, Hal Baylor, Alan Reynolds, Peter Brocco, Robert Shayne, Lyle Talbot, William Schallert

Cinematography: John L. Russell

Production Design: Gabriel Scognamillo

Special Effects: Howard and Theodore Lydecker

Film Editor: Basil Wrangell

Original Music: Howard Jackson

Written by Philip MacDonald, Carl Dudley

Produced by Richard Goldstone

Directed by Lee Sholem...

Child actor who memorably played the 12-year-old John Harper in the 1955 film The Night of the Hunter, starring Robert Mitchum

The acting career of Billy Chapin, who has died aged 72, ended 57 years ago, though his memorable performance in The Night of the Hunter (1955) has become an indelible part of film history. Charles Laughton’s only film as director is an eerily beautiful parable of good and evil, its bold visual style derived from the rural dramas of Dw Griffith, German Expressionism and American folk art.

Most of Chapin’s previous roles, where he displayed a gravitas, contrary to the label “cute” often affixed to child stars, persuaded Laughton to cast him in The Night of the Hunter. As Laughton told Davis Grubb, the author of the original novel, “What I want is a flexible child, and the boy is exactly that … he has innate ability to understand the construction of a scene,...

According to a Facebook post from his sister (via Variety), former child actor Billy Chapin has died after “a long illness.” In the post, Lauren Chapin refers to him as a “wonderful brother” and mentions that she and the rest of the family are “proud of all the great films he was in,” mentioning Night Of The Hunter, A Man Called Peter, The Kid From Left Field, and a few others. Chapin was 72.

Born in Los Angeles in 1943, Chapin and his siblings entered the acting world very young, with his first role coming when he was just a few weeks old in 1944’s Casanova Brown. (He played a baby, naturally.) His first proper acting role came in 1951, when he appeared onstage as part of a Broadway production of Three Wishes For Jamie, and his first real film role was for 1953’s The Kid From Left ...

Billy Chapin, best known for his role in the 1955 film “The Night of the Hunter,” died Friday after battling a long illness. He was 72.

The news of his death was announced on Saturday afternoon by his sister Lauren Chapin on Facebook.

“It is with a saddened heart that I say goodbye to my precious brother Billy Chapin, wonderful star of movies, television and radio,” wrote Lauren. “He passed away last night after a long illness but now is in the arms of his Savior. Billy was a wonderful brother to both Michael and me…He will be greatly missed.”

Read More: Florence Henderson Dies: See Her Career in Photos, From ‘The Brady Bunch’ to ‘Shakes the Clown’

Born on Dec. 28, 1943, in Los Angeles, Chapin first appeared in uncredited roles in films like “Casanova Brown” and “The Cockeyed Miracle.” He then made his Broadway debut in “Three Wishes for Jamie.”

Chapin...

Billy Chapin, a former child actor best known for starring opposite Robert Mitchum in 1955's The Night of the Hunter, has died. He was 72.

His sister Lauren Chapin, also a child star who appeared on the sitcom Father Knows Best, announced the news Saturday afternoon in a Facebook post.

"It is with a saddened heart that I say goodbye to my precious brother Billy Chapin," her message, posted to her personal page, reads. "He passed away last night after a long illness but now is in the arms of his Savior. ... He will be greatly missed."

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Billy Chapin, who as a child actor held his own against Robert Mitchum’s murderous preacher in Charles Laughton’s brilliant The Night of the Hunter, died Friday following a lengthy illness. His death was announced by his sister Lauren Chapin, the former child actress who costarred in TV’s classic family sitcom Father Knows Best. “It is with a saddened heart that I say ‘Good Bye’ to my precious brother Billy Chapin, wonderful Star of Movies, Television and Radio,” Lauren…...

The murky, decrepit Deep South setting has worked as a wonderful backdrop to a series of compelling thrillers in the past couple of years, with the likes of Killer Joe, The Paperboy and Mud all playing on the sensibilities of the environment to great effect. However it is one of the originators of the sub-genre that now makes its way back into cinemas across Britain; Charles Laughton’s timeless cult classic, The Night of the Hunter.

Originally released in 1955, Robert Mitchum turns in a chilling performance as Harry Powell, a crook who lands himself a short-term prison sentence for auto theft. In his cell he meets a man who claims to have robbed a bank, leaving behind 10 thousand dollars before being condemned to the death penalty. Upon Powell’s release, he heads straight for the man’s widow (Shelley Winters), however it is her two young children, John (Billy Chapin...

"Never work with children, animals or Charles Laughton," Alfred Hitchcock once advised, making The Night Of The Hunter, which is bountiful in all three, a no-go area for the Master. But that tongue-in-cheek Hitch advice aside, the standing of Laughton's rural noir continues to grow with every passing year. It's been restored ready for a re-release early in the new year, a perfect opportunity to catch it on the big screen, and has a beautiful new quad poster to help get the word out. If you haven't seen it, Laughton's 1955 thriller married traditional Hollywood filmmaking values with a more jarring German expressionist style to create a Grimm-like fairy tale of two wee'uns and a crazed preacher with sinister hand tattoos and a surprisingly loose adherence to the Ten Commandments.Robert Mitchum's preacher, Reverend Harry Powell, is a villain for the ages. He's heard about a stash of stolen money...

Peter Kimpton tops up our writers' favourite film series with an ode to Charles Laughton's 1955 thriller, a tale as dark and disquieting as a half-forgotten dream

Want to write your own review of the film? Do so here – or brave the cut-throat comments section below

Motionless for 90 minutes, I could not even remove my coat. I sweated and shivered. I felt in shock. Was the film recreating scenes from my sleep? I had never seen, as far as I can recall, The Night of the Hunter. That is until a cold, wintry night in the 1990s when, working in Glasgow, I went to the city's Gft cinema to catch a new 35mm print of Charles Laughton's 1955 masterpiece. It was his only film as a director. Critics panned it on its release, consequently killing off the actor's career behind the camera, and perhaps robbing history of further works of greatness.

by Jamie Zaccharia, MoreHorror.com

In Night of the Hunter, serial killer and reverend Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) meets bank robber (and soon to be executed criminal) Ben Harper (Peter Graves) in prison and learns that he has stolen and hidden $10,000. After some dubious sleep talk, Powell hatches a plan to marry Ben’s widow Willa (Shelley Winters) and discover the hiding place of the money by secretly interrogating her children, John (Billy Chapin) and Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce).

Mitchum was so unbelievably terrifying that just one of those looks would send me running in the other direction. The religious aspects of the movie are what made it work. No one is ignorant of how religious fanaticism can make men crazy, and Mitchum plays that sort of man with the right amount of subtlety and persuasion. Even just looking at the tattoos of “love” and “hate” on his hands gives me the shivers.

DVD Playhouse December 2010

By

Allen Gardner

America Lost And Found: The Bbs Story (Criterion) Perhaps the best DVD box set released this year, this ultimate cinefile stocking stuffer offered up by Criterion, the Rolls-Royce of home video labels, features seven seminal works from the late ‘60s-early ‘70s that were brought to life by cutting edge producers Bert Schneider, Steve Blauner and director/producer Bob Rafelson, the principals of Bbs Productions. In chronological order: Head (1968) star the Monkees, the manufactured (by Rafelson, et al), American answer to the Beatles who, like it or not, did make an impact on popular culture, particularly in this utterly surreal piece of cinematic anarchy (co-written by Jack Nicholson, who has a cameo), which was largely dismissed upon its initial release, but is now regarded as a counterculture classic. Easy Rider (1969) is arguably regarded as the seminal ‘60s picture, about two hippie drug dealers (director Dennis Hopper...

Charles Laughton cemented his place in film history with performances in Mutiny in the Bounty (1935) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939). His sole directorial effort Night of the Hunter (1955) wasn't met with quite the same enthusiam as his acting. However, critical opinion has swung favorably in his direction and this powerful expressionistic black-and-white thriller is now considered to be a classic. MGM released the film on DVD and VHS way back in 2000, but The Criterion Collection has swooped in with a hot new restoration on DVD and Blu-Ray. 

Night of the Hunter takes place in West Virginia in the 1930s. Ben Harper (Peter Graves) is on the run from the cops. He knows he is doomed so he quickly heads home to his family. He tells his son John (Billy Chapin) a secret and makes him promise to never reveal it. While on death row, Ben crosses paths with Harry...

The Night of the Hunter: Criterion Collection [Blu-Ray]

The Film

While researching the aspect ratio of Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter (1955) on DVDBeaver.com, I noticed something rather telling in the review. In each DVDBeaver review, there are links to books related to the film. For instance, if you look at the review of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), you'll find links to books on Kubrick. For the review of Night of the Hunter, DVDBeaver supplied a list of film noir book titles including Alain Silver's appropriately titled Film Noir, which features Hunter's antagonist Rev. Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) on the cover. Re-watching the film, I couldn't help but wonder what classified it as noir (for my classical noir retrospective, click here).

Sure, I can see on the surface where one might brand the film a noir. The film owes its aesthetic to German Expressionism, is shot in black and white,...

It’s a strange, post-modern conundrum I experienced this morning, I’ll set the scene: I wake up, check Twitter Before I check my e-mail, only to discover that Criterion has finally sent out their June e-mail newsletter (after announcing on Twitter that it might be a little late due to some revamping), and that apparently they’ve either announced Do the Right Thing on Blu-ray, or Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter. Clearly it was the latter.

Having not seen the movie before, but heard many people talk up how intense Robert Mitchum is as the murderer Robert Powell (specifically the Battleship Pretension, but I cannot remember the episode), I cannot wait for this release. Apparently this is an MGM title that Criterion has licensed (MGM is not doing too well these day’s financially, and it is rumored that Criterion has a nice long list of...