Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer: 20 of 31 Horror Movies I've Never Seen

Yes, there are classic films I've never seen.  In fact, there are classic films that plenty of people haven't seen.  I'm willing to bet that the majority of people reading this right now have never seen Made in USA, but that doesn't make me think that they're uncultured, just that they missed something I particularly enjoyed.  So yeah, I've never seen Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer until today.

How do I make a synopsis of a film that is a cult classic?  The title pretty much says it all.  The film examines a sociopath character in an attempt to portray the inner workings of the Serial Killer.  This is where the film is actually pretty accurate.  Henry is played as a REAL sociopath.  Even when we, the audience, begin to believe that maybe there's something sympathetic about Henry, the film is quick to remind us that there is no empathy in any serial killer.

Shot with an obviously small budget, Henry uses it's surroundings as a metaphor for the bleak viewpoints of the lead characters.  There is nothing but a visceral hatred present in Henry and his room mate Ottis, and when Ottis' sister Becky joins the fray the film makers are careful to disguise this hatred, as a sociopath would disguise it to any authoritarian figure, but once the net drops, it drops hard.

The film makes due with it's low budget by being inventive.  This may be one of the earliest examples of using VHS as a medium to aid the story telling process.  The filmmakers utilized this medium within context of the story, being watching by the characters on a color set they obtained via nefarious (murder) means, as a plot device, but by using it to actually tell the story as well, a method that is more prevalent now with the craze of Found Footage style horror films in the wake of The Blair Witch Project and in more recent films like the anthology V/H/S series and The Sacrament.

Another thing that I found particularly delightful about my experience watching the film was the discovery that the titular character of Henry was played by Michael Rooker, who I previously discovered as "The psycho dad from Mallrats."  I'm rather fond of Rooker's work following his relationship with director James Gunn and even his work in The Walking Dead (which I'm otherwise not particularly fond of) so you can probably imagine my gleeful realization that it was him when I finally got a good close up.

Most of my friends, who watch horror movies, have probably seen this film before me.  I like to think that I'm fairly transparent about the fact that there are many "cult classics" that I haven't seen due to my own tastes at the time, but sometimes I guess I'm not.  Anyway, if you're like me and haven't taken the time to check this one out, there's a streaming HD transfer on Netflix, or you can just rent the Bluray/DVD.  Be warned though: As enjoyable as the music is, it's mixed much louder than the rest of the sound in the film.

4 out of 5 skulls.