Post by doomedbloodwork on Jul 11, 2004 9:52:02 GMT -5
It is very, very difficult to discover a film that hasn't already been discussed on the Internet or raved about by critics.
When I first learned about HENRY - PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER in 1990, it was through Peter Travers' praising review of the film in Rolling Stone, which I used to get from Tower Records on import, which had just emerged from four years of distribution turnaround and went out unrated in the USA. Coincidentally, the film had just begun a first-run release at the now defunct Scala cinema (recently turned into a thriving London nightclub) in uncut form, with the original TCM playing in a double-bill with it. Out of curiousity, I decided to go and see it on a Saturday afternoon with a packed crowd who, like me, didn't know what to expect.
I looked on it as the flipside of TCM, as if we were watching the cannibal family in lengthy discussions before the group of youths trespassed on their property and living their life.
The startling thing about HENRY is that it lets the imagery stay on you, using lingering panning shots which make you aware of what is happening through the murderous noises on the soundtrack before showing the results of the killings.
At the time, audiences who were first privy to this movie were shocked into submission, as they had been when the likes of STRAW DOGS, THE WILD BUNCH and A CLOCKWORK ORANGE had done so on their first outings, but like them, the guilt of watching prompted a mixture of shocks and guilty laughter (this was a shock for me to hear people laughing (!) during a screening of the uncut I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE when the retard was attempting to have sex with Camille Keaton's character).
Although a genuinely powerful and disturbing experience for all, this is a movie that doesn't intend to make people comfortable and does what most horror films shy away from by making the characters of death iconic and heroic. Jason, Michael Myers, Pinhead and so on are not as repulsed in more recent offerings as they were at the start (although from what I have heard about ALIEN VS. PREDATOR, maybe that upcoming film could herald a return to the vicious horror villains of before)
Today though, the film makes some valid points on the aspects of human nature and by underplaying the performances of the excellent trio of actors, director John McNaughton provided the film which paved the way for the classics of the 90's like SILENCE, SEVEN and KALIFORNIA.
When I first learned about HENRY - PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER in 1990, it was through Peter Travers' praising review of the film in Rolling Stone, which I used to get from Tower Records on import, which had just emerged from four years of distribution turnaround and went out unrated in the USA. Coincidentally, the film had just begun a first-run release at the now defunct Scala cinema (recently turned into a thriving London nightclub) in uncut form, with the original TCM playing in a double-bill with it. Out of curiousity, I decided to go and see it on a Saturday afternoon with a packed crowd who, like me, didn't know what to expect.
I looked on it as the flipside of TCM, as if we were watching the cannibal family in lengthy discussions before the group of youths trespassed on their property and living their life.
The startling thing about HENRY is that it lets the imagery stay on you, using lingering panning shots which make you aware of what is happening through the murderous noises on the soundtrack before showing the results of the killings.
At the time, audiences who were first privy to this movie were shocked into submission, as they had been when the likes of STRAW DOGS, THE WILD BUNCH and A CLOCKWORK ORANGE had done so on their first outings, but like them, the guilt of watching prompted a mixture of shocks and guilty laughter (this was a shock for me to hear people laughing (!) during a screening of the uncut I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE when the retard was attempting to have sex with Camille Keaton's character).
Although a genuinely powerful and disturbing experience for all, this is a movie that doesn't intend to make people comfortable and does what most horror films shy away from by making the characters of death iconic and heroic. Jason, Michael Myers, Pinhead and so on are not as repulsed in more recent offerings as they were at the start (although from what I have heard about ALIEN VS. PREDATOR, maybe that upcoming film could herald a return to the vicious horror villains of before)
Today though, the film makes some valid points on the aspects of human nature and by underplaying the performances of the excellent trio of actors, director John McNaughton provided the film which paved the way for the classics of the 90's like SILENCE, SEVEN and KALIFORNIA.