![]() The killings are too often accompanied by cornball synth theatrics and echoing ululations. Low budget or not, there is simply no reason for its reliance on clumsy fade-outs, when jump cuts would have been far more effective. No amount of fine-tuning, however, can fix Henry‘s amateurish stylistic qualities. The restoration looks appropriately dour and grimy. (Ditto, given America’s still-prevalent firearms-crazed mentality, Henry’s line about “anyone” being able to buy a gun). Only psychopaths will be able to shake it from memory. ![]() A one-take, 70-second home-video shot of a whole family’s undoing plays without music in nakedly matter-of-fact fashion. Awful as this is to behold, the most sickening scenes not only show his deeds but emphasize the emotional upheaval of the slaughtered. ![]() In the opening shots, the camera slowly pulls back from the still-open eyes of female victims, gradually revealing the lacerations that ended them over this we hear the sounds of their violent struggles with Henry. Time has not softened its most chilling moments. A 4K restoration of the original 16mm print of Henry, which is based on the actual confessions - few of them proven true - of real-life murderer Henry Lee Lucas, is being shown in 20 cities. It was a festival favorite, and it eventually made year-end best lists. Shot on location in Chicago in 1985 for a paltry $110,000, Henry, as we now know, turned into an indie thriller cause célèbre. They’re perhaps the most despicable movie duo in history, and they’re electrifying. Michael Rooker plays Henry with a hangdog expression that ranges subtly from blank to contemptuous Tom Towles plays his accomplice Otis, a greasy, grimy loser with buck teeth who molests his sister and giggles with good-ol’-boy glee. The audience gets, well, a different one, complete with Coke bottles, television sets, electric screwdrivers and lamp cords used as instruments of torture and death. This is the impression of Henry that Becky, the sister of Henry’s sole friend and temporary housemate Otis, gets in John McNaughton’s Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. And if you say you love him, he’ll respond, in a churlish monotone, with “I guess I love you, too.” Sometimes his mind wanders disconcertingly - he can’t remember if he went to prison for shooting or stabbing his mother, for instance. Granted, he’s a bit squeamish about sex in general - something about his prostitute mother bringing johns back to the house, making little Henry watch, beating him, outfitting him in a dress. He has a low tolerance for ass grabbers, for one he’s known to take such bird dogs by their hair and give them a smashing or two. If you’re a vulnerable young woman who gets hit on by lecherous older men, you might think that you could do worse than having a guy like Henry at your side.
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