I truly love "The Night of the Hunter." The atmosphere in that film is absolutely incredible. It's too bad that it was the only film directed by actor Charles Laughton. I also like the atmosphere in "Sparrows." It's so grubby! It's grubby, however, in a way unlike what was normally seen in Hollywood films of the period. Sure, Hollywood did grubby back then, but it was usually big city, tenement grubby, not Southern bayou grubby. Both films share similar milieus, but also the creepy male lead characters who haunt each film. I doubt that Laughton was influenced by "Sparrows" (though it's not entirely out of the question), but both films do share thematic content that's set in similar settings. Although I'm not a fan of Southern Gothic pieces, I'd certainly be interested in seeing more films that fall into whatever subgenre these two films appear to inhabit.
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