Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer 4K 1986 Ultra HD 2160p

Story Movie

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.

Review 4K Movie

Henry, a simple-minded and rugged dork who prefers a washed-up T-shirt to all kinds of clothes, regularly changes only his place of residence - similar Midwestern towns. Eventually he stays at the apartment of an old prison buddy of his, dragging him into a series of senseless murders. At the same time, Henry cohabits with the former cellmate's sister, who is clearly flattered by the sullen macho's attention, leaving a chance to find simple marital happiness someday. However, instead of a strong male shoulder, the lonely woman receives something else...

Shocking in its blunt cruelty, the film tells the story of a real-life Texas maniac, Henry Lee Lucas. But even now it does not seem strange that the picture, shot in 1986, was released only after four (!) years on the shelf. Officially it was released only in 1990, listed in many directories under this year (although the copywriter clearly spelled '86). What could have happened in a movie that had been banned in a country that, thanks to the famous "First Amendment" in the Constitution, managed to save practically any film from oblivion.

After all kinds of delays (after all, the film was shortened by a couple of minutes) the film was released in limited distribution, accompanied by the far from successful advertising slogan: "He's not Freddie, he's not Jason, he's real. Meanwhile, behind the "conditional" external simplicity of the story you can consider the famous parable of the scorpion, which asked the frog to take him to the other side of the river, and then took and stung. And when asked: why? - replied, "I'm a scorpion, and there's nothing I can do about it.

In spite of the extremely "restrained" distribution, this ultra-low-budget film ($ 111 million) has already managed to pay for itself six times after its distribution in North America alone thanks to the active support of the critics. The film was screened at numerous festivals, winning prizes in Seattle, Porto, Brussels, etc. and being named "the smartest film about serial killers."

Director John McNaughton chose a quasi-documentary style of narration that allowed him to minimize the distance between the viewer and the shocking murder scenes. Presented in all the details of repulsive naturalism, the violence seemed to cease to be illusory. At the same time, the director used a very curious figurative device: showing Henry's already dead victims, he dubbed the "crime chronicle" with the screams and death rattle of the dying behind the scenes.

Henry - a serial killer, which at that time had no analogues in world cinema. He is not a psychopath with a bunch of complexes "from Dr. Freud", but a neighborhood guy who kills only because he likes it so much. The line between normality and pathology in relation to Henry is so elusive that you begin to doubt its very existence.

His story is not a genre movie, but a hyper-realistic cast. It is difficult to imagine such a thing in real life: the psyche will resist. It's impossible to live through it, or you wouldn't be alive now: such genres leave no witnesses. That's why after the movie you feel not only depressed, but also completely vulnerable. And soon you catch yourself looking at the most inconspicuous people with particular suspicion...

The film did a disservice to actor Michael Rooker, who immediately began to be replicated in movies as an exceptionally bad guy. As for McNaughton, he, like most independents, could not resist the temptation to work for Hollywood and soon, as is usually the case, matured. After a still quite remarkable comedy "Mad Dog and Glory" (1993), rolled to "conveyor production. By the end of the 1990s, the roller of hard production rolled into a smooth asphalted track all the creative roughness of his authorial ego. The result: McNaughton switched to soap operas. And he started out so well...