And if the visitor expansively makes himself at home and puts his shoes on the furniture and calls people by their familiar names when he is not exactly familiar with them, why, then, courtesy demands that the hosts put up with a good deal of that kind of behavior.
And if the stranger does not leave? If he announces that he might stay for a day or two, and receives a hesitant agreement, and then stays for a week or two, and shows no sign of leaving? What then? At what point do the obligations of host and the loyalty to family wear thin? At what point is the relative shown the door? Charles Burnett's "To Sleep With Anger" is a subtle kind of horror movie in which the unwelcome visitor is not a slasher or a cartoon character, but a soft-spoken relative from down South, getting on a bit in years, well-dressed, seemingly courteous. The tension in the movie is created as he stays and stays, until he is clearly unwelcome and yet no one can figure out a way to get rid of him. And the horror element comes as it begins to dawn on us, and the characters in the movie, that this man is some sort of emissary of evil. Perhaps not Satan precisely, but familiar with the neighborhood.
The visitor is named Harry. That is a familiar name for the devil, probably inspired by the devil's love of harrying people. That's what Harry does. He gets under their skins. He knows old secrets and refers to them after everybody has stopped talking about them for decades. He remembers shameful things people have done in their pasts.
He ferrets out their present weaknesses, and mocks them. He makes demands he knows are unreasonable. He brings a plague of anger and sadness down upon the house, and the family - a happy, prosperous black family that long since has settled in California - becomes divided and sick; the father even takes to his bed and lapses into a coma.
Harry is played in the movie by Danny Glover, who usually plays the most pleasant of men; he is the easy-going member of the team in the "Lethal Weapon" movies. Here his very pleasantness makes him more sinister. His good manners turn oily, somehow, and the others begin to clear a space around him, physically and in conversation. Glover is an actor of considerable presence, and here he lets us know his character is from hell, and hardly has to raise his voice.
Around him, the family members begin to turn unhappy. A younger brother grows weak and without direction. The father is ill.
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