Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
Directed by John McNaughton
Arriving in Chicago, Henry moves in with ex-con acquaintance Otis and starts schooling him in the ways of the serial killer.
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9 films that influenced this film
What critics say influenced Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer
Director
Alfred Hitchcock
Critics compare Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer to 2 of Hitchcock’s films.
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.
Sexual repression is a tried-and-true reflex for cinematic portrayals of killers, from Norman Bates in “Psycho” on down.
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).
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 ."
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.
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The film ranks down there with movies like ''In Cold Blood'' and ''Murder One,'' re-enactments of actual crimes.
The first killing we witness is an act of aggression against an obnoxious character, so naturally, after all our training in "Death Wish" movies, we feel the guy had it coming.
The scene is a direct spin-off of the pivotal rape-and-beating in A Clockwork Orange.
What you want "Henry" to be is "Taxi Driver" -- a movie that, while avoiding facile explanations, knows what it wants to say about its subject.