I'd rather say that hype is a social reaction, sometimes encouraged by a movie's marketing team, but always coming from audience interaction with each other. And can an art really be separated from its reaction? I don't think so, because a reaction is what defines art.

This is an interesting one, because the genre is really the only thing holding it back from a lot of people's greatest films of all times lists. I think, especially nowadays, we're so overwhelmed with mid-tier to mediocre superhero flicks that it's easy to forget that there have been brilliant films in the genre. They just tend to get washed away in the tide.

I loved Night of the Hunter! Probably why my family calls me a film snob...