Which is creepier?

The Night of the Hunter (Davis Grubb) was published in 1953. I read the book then and thought it was very suspenseful indeed. I can remember retelling the plot as a scarey story. I've never seen the movie and in a pretty much movieless existence didn't even know it existed. K., who never read the book, saw the movie and thought the same of it as I did of the book. Robert Mitchum is not like what I envisioned the preacher to be. The other characters do not seem like those in the book, either, apart, perhaps, from Lilian Gish. This must be out on video and surely the library or somebody has a copy of the book.