Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
Studio: Dark Sky Films
Directed by: John McNaughton
Cast: Michael Rooker, Tracy Arnold, Tom Towles
Review By: Marc Patterson

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer is a film that needs no introduction. It’s a harsh, unrelenting, and unforgiving depiction of the mindlessness of murder. It is notorious amongst avid fans of horror cinema and has received critical praise from horror and mainstream critics alike. The film doesn’t dabble in depth of plot, nor does it lace on subtext full of social commentary. It simply goes straight for the jugular in providing an unprecedented portrait of insanity embodied.

The film opens with an extreme close up of a naked woman. As the camera slowly zooms out, it reveals the woman’s body in horrifying detail, maimed and murdered, left in a public park to be found by whomever may be unlucky enough to find her.

We cut to Henry (Rooker), finishing a meal at a diner. He makes a flirtatious quip at the waitress and moments later we witness him leaving the diner. But then we get a glimpse of a moment we didn’t see… of him slaying the staff. This cut style of Henry going about his day, interspersed with set-pieces of the women he has interacted with gives us a real hard introduction to the man we are going to spend the next hour plus with.

Henry is a man who uses and discards his victims with the casual thoughtlessness attached to the simple action of flicking a cigarette out of a car window. He doesn’t bother to hide or cover up his crime scenes, and he doesn’t worry about getting caught. It’s not cockiness, or arrogance. Certainly he has no paranoia of a normal criminal. He’s something more. He’s simply unaffected. Unaffected by his own actions, unaffected by society, and unaffected by even those who appear close to him.

Enter Becky (Arnold), sister of Otis (Towles), roommate of Henry. Becky is fresh out of an abusive relationship and needs a place to stay for a bit. Otis and Henry are friends and roommates from their time on “the inside” and live in a low-rent Chicago apartment. When Becky meets Henry there is almost immediate attraction. Despite his homicidal tendencies Henry has a relaxed and cordial sense of decorum that Becky finds appealing. As they begin to learn about each other a relationship based on their mutual abusive pasts begins to emerge. (Though we sense that when it comes to being Henry, nothing will get in the way.)

The intensity ramps up when Otis gets involved in Henry’s killing spree. Unlike Henry, Otis is liken to a wild young child, uncontrolled and dangerous if left unchecked. The story builds to a steady climax where it eventually unloads a cruel ending on the audience like a double barrel of buckshot.

Though the role of Henry isn’t one that any actor would want to be defined by, certainly Michael Rooker will always be associated with this film. It’s an ironic tragedy that he is unflinchingly at his finest. His eyes never betray anything that could be going on beneath the surface. He’s always perfectly controlled and poker face. The fact that he portrays a blue collared “everyman” is even more nightmarish.

The directorship by McNaughton is deliberate and perfect, focusing the camera exactly on what it wants you to see, with every shot well thought out. Despite the initial lack of any on screen violence, the film effectively shows a depraved viciousness that few films have attained.

The film works because it’s not exploitive but rather because it poignantly gives the viewer an intimate look into a sick serial killer. Though it’s decidedly one sided, not humanizing the victims, it remains a true “portrait” piece, as the title indicates, which only furthers the nightmares you’ll inevitably be given.

The film looks excellent on Blu-ray, as you can only feasibly expect. I’m not an insane home cinema geek so I can’t get into the heavy-handed technical details over compression ratios, edge enhancement and all that nifty nonsense, nor will I try. I’ll just come out and say what few will; As good looking as the film was, I wasn’t impressed as I normally am. I’ve never owned a copy of Henry on DVD so the last time I viewed this film it was on VHS. Here’s a perfect case of where lo-fi wins hands down against Blu-ray. Somehow the ultra cleaned-up look and terrific sound took away from the extreme impact of watching the film at home on a VHS set.

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer is a gritty and drab film that should make you want to take a shower after watching it, and deserves to be watched in that way. This embodiment, though a nice package for the film, simply didn’t carry that emotional connection for me.

Beyond the film proper Dark Sky has done the honor of carrying over all of the extras from their two-disc special edition DVD that they released a couple years back. There are no added bonuses to the Blu-ray that make this worthy of an upgrade if you already have that DVD sitting on your shelf.

Included is a lively commentary track from McNaughton that goes into extensive detail on the making of the film. Highly worthy of your viewing is the 52 minute documentary, Portrait: The Making of Henry, that doles out a great deal of “behind the scenes” footage as well as interviews with a variety of folks involved. If you don’t spend the time for the commentary track you’ll catch some of the same details on how the film was brought together in this top-notch documentary. The final “must-view” extra is a 30 minute documentary pulled from a television series called The Serial Killers: Henry Lee Lucas. Personally I didn’t have much interest in this segment, though it’s not a bad look at a truly sick man. Lucas comes off as mentally deranged and not completely lucid in thought. The production values are ridiculously low, so don’t expect anything flashy.

Rounding out the disc are an interview with McNaughton, a trailer and storyboards, as well as roughly twenty minutes of deleted scenes and outtakes. Altogether not too shabby.

My final conclusion? This was totally worth the upgrade and purchase. Like I said, I don’t own the DVD and to be honest, I don’t really watch much in the way of VHS anymore, even though I have a perfectly good machine. If you have the two-disc SE from Dark Sky you’ll flip a coin but I have a feeling that ultimately you’ll dole out the extra dough for the Blu-ray, because let’s face it… we horror nuts are a bunch of disc-hungry materialistic bastards. Not that there’s anything wrong with that!