Henry: Portrait of a Serial KillerEvil exists, and it is a stain that spreads like blood on fabric. It can be in the decisive desire to inflict harm upon another, or in the abject absence of morality; either way, evil exists. Serial killers are one of society's most notorious examples of evil, people who have a total lack of regard for humanity, and exercise neither empathy nor restraint in their course of destroying human lives. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer takes us down a harrowing descent along the path of such a person.
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Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer remains the single most chilling, shocking horror movie I can think of. It is not due to a complicated plot, nor is it replete with special effects or any stylistic flourish, but rather due to its unrelentingly direct depiction of extreme violence and the environment in which it thrives. Henry (Michael Rooker) is a day laborer, working menial jobs, just as his roommate, Otis (Tom Towles) does. Both are ex-cons, and both only scrape by to live in their hovel of an apartment in a bad neighborhood in Chicago. One day, Otis' sister, Becky (Tracy Arnold) comes to stay with them, her own ex-husband now convicted of murder himself. Otis tells Becky of Henry's past--that he killed his mother--which intrigues her, although she is drawn to Henry because he appears as a calm, quiet man, not like her lecherous--even incestuous--brother. After Henry admonishes Otis for advances on Becky, they go out on the town to forget; but when Henry "invites" Otis into his world of murder as a pastime, Otis' world is forever blackened, even worse than before. Henry awakens a darkness buried--but not so deep--within Otis, who seems hellbent on racing Henry to the bottom in a contest of depravity. After murdering a black market TV dealer, and acquiring his camcorder, they set about filming their disastrous exploits, which only fuels their terrible thrill-seeking, especially for Otis. After Otis' first encounter with Henry's true nature, they share a fast food meal in Henry's beat up car afterwards. Subtle cues confirm that he has been drawn in when Otis' appetite surges forth, and they drink their coffee the same way; they even share a beer later--this is the worst kind of male bonding possible. Becky becomes an unfortunate part of their terrible urges, if inadvertently. She falls for Henry, but Otis' toxic designs on her make for a warped love triangle. Although we never really know what--if anything--propelled Otis into his own corruption, Becky and Henry share stories of their own abused upbringing a short time after they meet over a game of cards. Becky was molested by her father, and Henry informs Becky that his mother was a prostitute, and would make him wear a dress. These details were adapted from the stories recounted by real-life serial killer, Henry Lee Lucas, implicating that an unclean environment bears warped or damaged fruit, the core theme of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. The shoestring budget of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer actually benefits the film by creating a setting that is unfriendly and provocative of violence. The Chicago of the film is not neat and rarely appears safe; dismal, dark alleys are well-suited as the stomping grounds of a serial killer, the places where you were warned not to walk alone. Although not strictly a tale about economic hardship, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer features characters from the lowest financial standing, people who scrape by for a few bucks, for whom spending fifty bucks to replace a busted TV is an investment. There is a bit of commentary here, implying that some of those who suffer from being acclimated to a life of destitution do not have the same kind of value of life, like Henry or Otis, and they get their kicks from their abominable acts. Compounding that is the thrill they get when they video tape their killings, forcing us--the audience--to be complicit in their snuff films, at one point watching them watching themselves on TV. The thrill that comes is from the sense that since they cannot be famous for their actions, they can still be on television, and enjoy a kind of private notoriety.
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer is a rare horror film, ironically because it actually achieves what it sets out to do: horrify the viewer. Never for one moment does the film invite any kind of humor or opportunity for viewers to chuckle at any kind of predictability. Even when we know what to expect from Henry's dark urges, we consistently look on with dread. There is graphic violence, but never once would any serious viewer examine it with any reaction other than actual revulsion. There is female nudity; but in other horror movies where this might be played for titillation, here it becomes nothing less than gut-wrenching disquiet, because it always is accompanied by brutal violence. From the very first scenes of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, we begin to get to know Henry even before he has had a chance to introduce himself to us. Scenes of the carnage in his wake are the calling cards to his method, varied by design, but with enough commonalities so that a profiler--or an attentive audience--would have a sense of what it is that Henry is like, and what we get to know about him by his signature. He claims to avoid leaving a modus operandi, but almost all of his victims are attractive women, whom we understand are surrogates for his mother. They are often left in varying states of undress, but there is no suggestion that Henry has sexually violated them. This tableau is the true portrait of the serial killer, and these moments of cold and still horror are accompanied on the audio track of the reverberations of the crime which preceded them, which leaves our imaginations responsible with the unsavory task of envisioning them, already conditioned by the devastating aftermath. The interplay between Henry and Becky promises a kind of redemption, some way for the ill-fated girl to try to bring humanity back into Henry's life. There is that moment when he stares long into the mirror, and we are forced to contemplate what could be going through his mind, in the denouement of the film. Is he considering abandoning his life of killing and sharing a quiet one with Becky? Is he still plagued by the evil wrapped tight around his mind, urging him to kill again? What is worse still is that we simply cannot know, no more than we can know what anyone else is truly thinking, but more so with Henry because he is so alien, so inscrutable. He plays the part well, but whatever Henry is, he ceased to be human long ago.
Recommended for: Fans of a film which is best described as a drama which is designed to horrify you with its unabashedly frank and vicious portrayal of a serial killer. The horror movie genre--and especially that of the slasher film--will forever be home of a kind of entertainment wherein the bloodiness is, in reality, a distraction from a film which is about something else. In Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, the horror is the film, and like the killer it portrays, it is determined and unrelenting in conjuring terror and dread.
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer is a rare horror film, ironically because it actually achieves what it sets out to do: horrify the viewer. Never for one moment does the film invite any kind of humor or opportunity for viewers to chuckle at any kind of predictability. Even when we know what to expect from Henry's dark urges, we consistently look on with dread. There is graphic violence, but never once would any serious viewer examine it with any reaction other than actual revulsion. There is female nudity; but in other horror movies where this might be played for titillation, here it becomes nothing less than gut-wrenching disquiet, because it always is accompanied by brutal violence. From the very first scenes of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, we begin to get to know Henry even before he has had a chance to introduce himself to us. Scenes of the carnage in his wake are the calling cards to his method, varied by design, but with enough commonalities so that a profiler--or an attentive audience--would have a sense of what it is that Henry is like, and what we get to know about him by his signature. He claims to avoid leaving a modus operandi, but almost all of his victims are attractive women, whom we understand are surrogates for his mother. They are often left in varying states of undress, but there is no suggestion that Henry has sexually violated them. This tableau is the true portrait of the serial killer, and these moments of cold and still horror are accompanied on the audio track of the reverberations of the crime which preceded them, which leaves our imaginations responsible with the unsavory task of envisioning them, already conditioned by the devastating aftermath. The interplay between Henry and Becky promises a kind of redemption, some way for the ill-fated girl to try to bring humanity back into Henry's life. There is that moment when he stares long into the mirror, and we are forced to contemplate what could be going through his mind, in the denouement of the film. Is he considering abandoning his life of killing and sharing a quiet one with Becky? Is he still plagued by the evil wrapped tight around his mind, urging him to kill again? What is worse still is that we simply cannot know, no more than we can know what anyone else is truly thinking, but more so with Henry because he is so alien, so inscrutable. He plays the part well, but whatever Henry is, he ceased to be human long ago.
Recommended for: Fans of a film which is best described as a drama which is designed to horrify you with its unabashedly frank and vicious portrayal of a serial killer. The horror movie genre--and especially that of the slasher film--will forever be home of a kind of entertainment wherein the bloodiness is, in reality, a distraction from a film which is about something else. In Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, the horror is the film, and like the killer it portrays, it is determined and unrelenting in conjuring terror and dread.