
Loosely based on serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, the film follows Henry and his roommate Otis who Henry introduces to murdering randomly selected people. The killing spree depicted in the film starts after Otis' sister Becky comes to stay with them. The people they kill are strangers and in one particularly gruesome attack, kill all three members of a family during a home invasion. Henry lacks compassion in everything he does and isn't the kind to leave behind witnesses - of a... (Full plot summary below)
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Loosely based on serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, the film follows Henry and his roommate Otis who Henry introduces to murdering randomly selected people. The killing spree depicted in the film starts after Otis' sister Becky comes to stay with them. The people they kill are strangers and in one particularly gruesome attack, kill all three members of a family during a home invasion. Henry lacks compassion in everything he does and isn't the kind to leave behind witnesses - of any kind.
Leave your thoughts about Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.
| Los Angeles TimesSheila BensonHenry: Portrait of a Serial Killer is as fine a film as it is a brutally disturbing one. |
| eFilmCritic.comRob GonsalvesHenry: Portrait of a Serial Killer has a creepy, city-after-dark overtone, an existential chill. It carries a true grindhouse whiff while staking its claim as art. |
| Antagony & EcstasyTim BraytonIt is unspeakably unpleasant, and it is almost perfect. |
| Baltimore SunLou CedroneIf you want a gore fix, this is it. If you're looking for a film with purpose, better wait until the bill changes. |
| Philadelphia InquirerDesmond RyanHenry: Portrait of a Serial Killer contrasts the mundane and the domestic with the appalling. The tone doesn't vary at all, and it's not a pretty picture, but movies that burn their images into your consciousness like this one are very, very rare. It is admittedly hard to look, but this is a portrait that demands to be seen. |
| New York TimesCaryn JamesThis intelligent, revolting, artistically made and entirely empty look at a murderer comes close to a cinema of pure technique. It is profoundly disturbing, even more for the questions it raises about the use of film than for the mutilated bodies that litter the screen. |
| USA TodayMike ClarkMcNaughton has made a film of clutching terror that's meant to heighten our awareness instead of dulling it. At the end, Henry is still out there among us. And he's no B-movie monster in a hockey mask. He could be the guy next door. This film gives off a dark chill that follows you all the way home. |
| Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertThe film uses a slice-of-life approach to create a docudrama of chilling horror. |
| Boston GlobeJay CarrThe film doesn't so much bring us closer to the serial murderer as it reminds us of our culpability as spectators. |
| Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanHenry: Portrait of a Serial Killer is undeniably disturbing, especially that video scene and when it shows us (however discreetly) a body being hacked up in a bathtub. Yet the critics who’ve hailed it as a landmark are going overboard. Henry is just a superior B-movie with an artsy-clinical title. |