John McNaughton
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A History of Violence (2005)
Directed by David Cronenberg
influenced by Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
Visuals
As the movie opens, in a sequence that recalls the off-hand horror of John McNaughton's 1986 "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer," we see a pair of vicious drifters making their way toward Tom's town with a stick-up on their minds.
Bones and All (2022)
Directed by Luca Guadagnino
influenced by Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
Visuals Themes
Aesthetically and tonally, Bones fits somewhere between John McNaughton’s Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and Gregg Araki’s nihilistic road flick The Living End .
Reminiscent of John McNaughton’s “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer,” the film’s killings occur in common places – apartments, houses, abandoned buildings – the unsuspecting going about their workaday chores and activities, unaware of the brutality occurring just feet away, only a door or wall obscuring the horror within.
Joker (2019)
Directed by Todd Phillips
influenced by Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
Themes
While The King of Comedy and Taxi Driver might be the most obvious points of cinematic comparison for Joker – right down to a borderline corny balletic dance Phoenix has with a handgun that looks like it could be a deleted scene from the latter – Phillips’ latest has just as much in common with John McNaughton’s controversial Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, only with marginally sunnier source material.
As the film dives into its Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer descent, there’s little to enjoy, but when he puts on his happy face and jaunts around to Rock & Roll Part 2 (the infamous song from many an American sporting event as performed by convicted sex offender Gary Glitter, yet another grotesque and sleazy choice from the filmmakers) it feels like the kind of instantly recognizable “Joker” motifs that have become fan favorites over the years.
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
influenced Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
Themes
As in Joseph Ruben's Stepfather, Terrence Malick's Badlands and Hitchcock's classic Shadow of a Doubt, the intent is to demonstrate how madness can wear an ordinary, even pleasing face.
The Boston Strangler (1968)
Directed by Richard Fleischer
influenced Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
Characters
What's missing from the movie is the near-embarrassing intimacy we shared with Tony Curtis' family-man killer in The Boston Strangler (even though he, too, was finally unknowable).
The Honeymoon Killers (1970)
Directed by Leonard Kastle
influenced Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
Visuals Themes
Like Leonard Kastle’s “The Honeymoon Killers” (1970), it’s a deliberately flat, affectless treatment of gruesome true-crime material.
Made in 1969, "The Honeymoon Killers" presaged elements of David Lynch's filmic approach, and clearly informed John McNaughton 's similarly-themed stomach-churner film " Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer ."
Or maybe it's in every single moment that Theresa Russell, as Kelly's alcoholic mother, shows up to impersonate Kathleen Turner playing Joan Crawford in a Miami Mommie Dearest.
In a lot of ways, A Simple Favor is an attempt at redoing the gleefully trashy 1998 film Wild Things, but with very mixed results.
Imagine a more complex, more upmarket, version of something like Wild Things and you’re in the right tonal ballpark.
Kelly, the hot daughter of blue-blood trophy wife Sandra Van Ryan (Russell, apparently playing Kathleen Turner in "Body Heat"), keeps inviting herself into his jeep or his home.
Maybe when McNaughton inserts his first close-up of a just-sealed bullet wound, his thirtieth shot of Denise Richards' nipples, or his plagiaristic carbon-copying of the rope-in-the-water shot from Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear, a Southern-fried suspense film as rigorous and invigorating as this one is lifeless.
Here is a rare eccentric among American actors, someone not just ready for but reliant on unusual adventure in a project (Groundhog Day, Mad Dog and Glory, Lost in Translation).
There are as many betrayals, surprises and reversals in this gaudy, libidinous romp as in "The Grifters," "Bound" and "L.A. Confidential" combined.
American Psycho (2000)
Directed by Mary Harron
influenced by Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
Themes
As a movie that seeks to present a mass murderer as a symptom of some larger cultural condition, American Psycho is far inferior to John McNaughton's ice-cold Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.
Badlands (1973)
Directed by Terrence Malick
influenced Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
Themes
As in Joseph Ruben's Stepfather, Terrence Malick's Badlands and Hitchcock's classic Shadow of a Doubt, the intent is to demonstrate how madness can wear an ordinary, even pleasing face.
Faces of Death (2026)
Directed by Daniel Goldhaber
influenced by Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
Themes
Goldhaber might have updated not just Faces of Death but 1986’s Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, that unblinking indictment of video-age voyeurism…
Dangerous Animals (2025)
Directed by Sean Byrne
influenced by Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
Themes
Or “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer” meets “The Meg.”
“Elle” hawks back to films like “Cape Fear” from Martin Scorsese or “Wild Things” from John McNaughton – stylistically ravaging, but hypnotically inscrutable in its narrative defenses.
Dillon plays Sam Lombardo, the ladykiller-cum-boating instructor at a tony South Florida high school who finds himself accused of rape first by one leggy blonde student (Starship Troopers' Richards) and then another, darker one (Scream's Campbell) in this noirish sleazefest that plays like Basic Instinct meets Out of the Past and feels like Party of Five as directed by the Dark Brothers.
Psycho (1960)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
influenced Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
Themes
Sexual repression is a tried-and-true reflex for cinematic portrayals of killers, from Norman Bates in “Psycho” on down.
Se7en (1995)
Directed by David Fincher
influenced by Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
Themes
I can't help but think that if unknowns were cast in the principal roles we'd be seeing something almost as disturbing as John McNaughton's seminal Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer but, I suppose, that's Hollywood.