"Henry: Portrait of a serial killer" belongs to a certain type of films which are not wanted but needed.
The film raised many controversies ever since it's initial release, and nobody who already watched it wonders why. It's disgusting, violent, raw, but most of all it is honest. Imagine a combination of "Peeping Tom" and "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" and now amplify the final result.
The media and the society itself has always been fascinated about killers for several reasons: why they do it, how they get away with it, but most of all how they do it. The final question never got a fair answer in cinematography until Henry came along.
An extremly low-budget film, "Henry" manages to create reactions only because of it's honesty, showing explicit scenes of violence through the eyes of a tormented man. The characters are unhappy and live in a grey world where boredom is a routine and it destroys people from the inside.
Infamous scenes like the one when Henry (Micharl Rooker) and Otis (Tom Towells) watch a tape of their own murderous acts ruin society's fascination about serial killers. Most people will not want to watch this movie a second time, but everyone should watch it at least once. It may lack the vegetarian message of "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" or the love story of "Peeping Tom", but it shows us how reality is like and it doesn't lie to us about serial killers and violence. Henry is the " Unforgiven" of horror film.
Review of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer
