Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer
First screened in March 2025
Director: John McNaughton. Cast: Michael Rooker, Tracy Arnold, Tom Towles, Ray Atherton, Kurt Naebig, Erszebet Sziky, Lisa Temple, Donna Dunlap. Screenplay: John McNaughton and Richard Fire. In Brief:
Not for the faint of heart, or even the hale of heart. Nasty, but sincere in thought and form.
VOR:④
A filmgoing life can be complete without Henry, but as time capsule, micro-budget achievement, and limit-case of responsible image-making, it matters.
I watched this movie on the 35th anniversary of its opening in the U.S. The movie itself didn't strike me as all that dated in style or boldness of conception, even if you spend much of the (short) runtime hoping someone invents DNA tests, fast. Then again, they absolutely knew how to run a print analysis in 1990, or in 1985-86 when the movie was filmed, and it's an assertion of the text that no cops are in pursuit and nobody even seems to be noticing the extraordinary pileup of bodies.
Henry eventually speaks to his refusal of any signature m.o. for his murders, so as to yield no identifiable trail. This had been bugging me throughout, and I'm not sure that dialogue insert convinces me. It does sometimes seem like McNaughton wants to film a bunch of different ways to defile a body. I didn't think the movie was getting off on its own violence or desecration, but I'm not positive I would blame anybody who did (or who felt any which way about this whole piece). Several times, I did wonder what the experience for the actors and the crew must have been like. I know people train to avoid category confusion between life and illusion (or life and art, a term I ultimately think Henry deserves), but holy moly. I'd be amazed if the performers or the filmmakers had an easy time shaking all this off.
Tracy Arnold's performance is a standout for me, as is McNaughton's approach to writing and fulfilling her arc. Rooker is as disquieting as often described, though I had a few questions about where his Henry falls on the spectrum between personality and abstract proposition. Not at all sure about Towles. The construction of this particular Chicago is very adept, especially on this minuscule budget—totally mundane yet darkly insinuating, though it's not the kind of film where it feels great to say, "Oh, that's just up the street from me, I pass there all the time!"
Maybe the thing that has dated about Henry is people's level of shock and outrage during the movie's multi-year rollout and eventual release. Even reviews that admired the movie betray little if any desensitization to this storyline, these sounds and images. I would like that world back. And for fuck's sake, even this movie has attracted a fair amount of "#Actually, it's a comedy" discourse, including from its director. Shut up with that stuff!! Grade:B+
