Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer (1990) A movie review by Serdar Yegulalp Copyright 1997 by Serdar Yegulalp
CAPSULE: Bleak and point-blank -- just the way it should be. Makes its case with cold-blooded precision and intelligence.
"Serial killer chic" is a relatively new entry to the cultural vocabulary, and one of the more stomach-turning ones. I've never found someone automatically admirable or even interesting because they killed creatively or in great numbers, and because of that I had apprehensions about seeing HENRY. I wasn't sure I wanted to see the story of multiple murderer Henry Lee Lucas portrayed as some kind of nihilistic hero/antihero.
Thankfully, that's not the way HENRY works. The director, John McNaughton, took a small budget and a gallery of actor friends and created a chilling and intelligent piece of work. It doesn't provide cheap-jack explanations for Henry's behavior: it shows him up for what he is, an unrepentant and un-idolizable man who killed when the mood struck him.
At the film's opening, Henry's friend Ottis Toole has a sister, who comes by to stay while she tries to find work in Chicago. In a viciously riveting scene, he admits matter-of-factly to having murdered his own mother, and she covers his hand with hers. They are damned together from that moment on.
Henry and Ottis eventually begin to kill for fun. The movie is especially good at showing how they seem to have drifted casually into it: there's a scene where the two go to buy a new TV. The pawnbroker they talk to goads Henry with ugly words, and Henry responds by stabbing the man to death with a soldering iron. No preface -- it smashes into us as suddenly as it does the broker.
In a scene which many damned the movie for, unseen, they steal a video camera and film the murder of a whole household, playing it back over and over again for their own enjoyment. The movie itself, however, does not glorify the killings, but shows instead that Henry feels no joy at his work, only irritation.
HENRY succeeds thanks to excellent writing and direction as well as acting. Michael Rooker is credible as Henry from the first frame, just standing there, and the rest of the cast works by being unaffected and casual as well. The producers had originally comissioned a slasher film from McNaughton, but he decided to give them something more memorable, and consequently the film nearly didn't see release.
The film does not glorify or justify -- it just shows us, with unflinching coldness, what Henry was. I'm hard pressed to see how anyone can see this and consider Henry any kind of "victim" or "hero". Then again, probably, so would Henry.
Three and a half out of four motels.
syegul@ix.netcom.com EFNet IRC: GinRei http://www.io.com/~syegul another worldly device... you can crush me as I speak/write on rocks what you feel/now feel this truth =smilin' in your face, all the time wanna take your place, the BACKSTABBERS=
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