Henry, a lonely drifter, involves his dumb-ass cellmate Otis in a series of senseless murders. Randomly choosing their victims, they invent new ways to kill each time. Otis’ sister Becky comes to Chicago to visit and falls in love with Henry.
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The famous Italian criminological psychiatrist Cesare Lombroso noted that a person’s predisposition to murder is determined by purely personal perception. Simply put, a potential criminal has all his inhuman intentions written on his forehead. The bold theories of the Italian scientist, however, have been ruthlessly debunked by time itself. Everything around is changing, cities and countries are being transformed, but the number of violent deaths is not decreasing at all. Potential killers and maniacs are still hidden in society and are not visually identifiable. In the century that has passed since the publication of Lombroso’s works, world criminalistics has accumulated invaluable experience; the archives of the world’s leading countries are bursting with cases, but the psychology of the beast that has taken human form is still difficult to understand even by the greatest scientists.
In his first, and perhaps most famous, film, Michael Rooker created the archetype of a killer, outwardly indistinguishable from the rest of his class. The main horror is that those like him are indistinguishable from the gray masses. Henry is not an unabashed drunkard or a troublemaker, he makes his living from odd jobs and lives modestly in an apartment with a fellow recidivist. This man seems to have little interest in life. He rolls around slowly in his rusty Dreadnought and just glances around. All is quiet and peaceful, except that after Henry’s trips the bodies of women multiply. Some with their throats cut, some strangled, some drowned – all murders are united only by the absence of any trace. The textbook look of the murderer implies wildly rolling eyes, angry lines, and a pulsating sense of danger. Henry, on the other hand, calmly returns to his den and even presents “trophies” to his roommate.
One of the basic tenets of forensic science is that “motives for crimes must be simple. A mentally sane person is not capable of killing for “nothing to do. They take a life because of a woman, money, radical religious beliefs, or drunkenness. However, the motives behind Henry’s actions are outside the realm of common sense. One thing is certain: he does not kill people for profit or to satisfy his animal cruelty. Caught maniacs before the court for many months are carefully examined by psychiatrists, trying to determine the weakest link in the chain of character. There must be one single reason that pushes a person to kill, from it all pulls to the rest. Henry is a lurking monster, but far from a unicum. From his dim-witted roommate Otis, he once hears the magic phrase: “I wish I could kill someone. Henry’s empty eyes flash with fire – here’s the clue! For some monstrous reason, killing has become synonymous with relaxation, a kind of therapy. The agonizing victim, the fear forever imprinted on his face, became food for the quiet and inconspicuous insect harvester.
Most surprising of all, Henry is not drawn to the genius of evil. Well-versed in the specifics of police investigation, he has no trouble avoiding the typical mistakes of serial killers. He does not “get high” by evading justice, the custodians of the law generally remain out of the picture. But the motivation for the crimes in his film John McNaughton pays maximum attention. The threat to the quiet American town is doubled when Henry takes his sidekick Otis. Aside from doing time together, it’s unclear what these men might have in common. Henry’s roommate appears to be a natural degenerate whose needs are mostly reduced to sitting in front of the TV with a can of beer. Involvement in the murders reveals the basest facets of this unattractive type. If Henry soothes his soul by taking someone’s life, Otis descends rather quickly into various perversions, aided in no small part by the theft of a video camera. According to the recollections of some real-life murderers, every innocent killed is a pain in the brain, slowly destroying it. Otis is not just not afraid of any splinter, he revels in every way he can by contemplating pictures of his own crimes. Such a “hobby” cannot be understood even by Henry, to say nothing of Otis’ sister, who, on her own misfortune, has become involved with two werewolves. The timid “lamb” Becky embodies society’s timid hope that the terrible threat hanging over the innocent townspeople will go away on its own. Seeing no real joy of life for the years she has lived, Becky is ready to give her heart even to someone like Henry, because outwardly he is at least better than her nasty brother.
A characteristic feature of McNaughton’s film is the pseudo-documentary style of shooting. It is not for nothing that the police are absent as a class. The director shows life through the eyes of a maniac. It is a kind of chronicle of a murderer, with no visible beginning and no logical ending. The poor color palette is the best reflection of the everyday life of the town where Henry operates. The impending misfortune of another innocent victim is paired with an extremely harsh musical backdrop. Day and night merge, as the killer is not afraid of sunlight or bystanders. McNaughton invites each viewer to put together all the monstrous pieces of the mosaic of Henry’s mind on their own. Will the maniac never be able to stop in his bloody marathon? Maybe the contemplation of the Neanderthal nature of Otis is able to awaken the remaining feelings of a serial killer? Or would the sympathy of an ordinary girl, Becky, come to the rescue? These questions hang like a frowning cloud over the film’s gray canvas. As long as people like Henry walk the earth, there will always be more questions than answers.
The debate in the scientific community about the so-called “killer gene” continues unabated. It does not correlate well with the theories of Cesare Lombroso, but is just one of the attempts to prevent the emergence of future serial killers. According to the researchers of the notorious gene, the DNA of a potential murderer contains a comprehensive answer about the propensity to kill. All that remains is to learn how to recognize this gene in the shortest possible time. However, in what way the experimenters intend to do this – is not reported. Consequently, while the scientific community only promises to prevent future crimes, and the law enforcement system is one step behind the monsters in human guise, ordinary residents of towns and cities are left to nurture timid hopes that they will escape misfortune. “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer” is a unique film and it was not created to promote such creatures. This film is an attempt to understand their essence. “Forewarned is forearmed” is the only way to survive in a battle with a terrible enemy.
Info Blu-ray
Video
Codec: HEVC / H.265 (93.2 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: HDR10
Original aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Audio
English: LPCM 2.0 (Original)
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English: Dolby Digital 5.1
English: DTS 2.0
Subtitles
English SDH.
