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Horror in the 90s: 'Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer

The first in a series of pieces on horror in the 90s, Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer.

By Sean PatrickPublished 11 months ago 6 min read
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Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer (1990)

Directed by John McNaughton

Written by Richard Fire, John McNaughton

Starring Michael Rooker, Tracy Arnold, Tom Towles

Release Date January 5th, 1990

Henry Portrait of a Serial Killers opens on a perfect and horrifying bit of misdirection. With birds chirping in the background, it’s an idyllic setting, for a moment you settle into the film. You see the peaceful face of what you initially believe is a woman sleeping, perhaps about to wake up and begin her day. Then, director John McNaughton’s camera begins to reveal what is really happening here.

The woman is not sleeping, indeed her eyes aren’t even closed, they are blackened, either from the mess made of her makeup or, perhaps a beating. Regardless, her eyes are open and lifeless. In reality, the camera was never still, it was always pulling back and always about to reveal that you are looking at a dead woman, fully nude, wounds to her abdomen fresh with blood. The camera tilts and a score sets in underneath, a droning but angelic chorus that ends in a harsh cut to a cigarette, harshly stubbed out in diner ashtray.

The harshness of the cut and the symbolism of the cigarette, once carrying a fiery, intoxicating life before being snuffed out with a careless force hits you hard. We are barely two minutes into Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer, and that’s counting a credits sequence that is just text on a black screen with a tense synth score underneath. And yet, director John McNaughton has already set the tone. The plasticized perfection of nature in our imagination slowly melting to a horrifying and harsh reality.

The movement from the mundane to the horrific is a hallmark of Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer. After that harsh cut from before establishes Henry in the diner, stubbing out his cigarette, we watch a mundane moment play out. The camera slowly pulls back to observe Henry pick up his bill, stand, put on his jacket, walk a few steps to the other side of the counter. He pays his bill and half heartedly flirts with his waitress. Then Henry walks to his car and climbs inside, giving us, ever so-briefly, a glimpse of his face.

Then WHAM! Hard cut to a body lying face down on the counter of a liquor store, a bullet in her head. Look at the visuals, side by side of the diner waitress and the woman on the counter, they could be the same person. It’s as if the movie is showing us that no one is safe, Henry will kill whenever he feels like killing and whomever. We’re not even finished with the reveal however, as this time, there are two corpses, another lying on the floor, feet away from the first victim.

We don’t need to see the killings, it’s quite clear from the editing, the progression of scene to scene, who is responsible for these grisly deaths. The sound design also progresses at this moment. I am imagining from the birds chirping and the silence of the opening moments, that the first victim was likely dumped in that location. I am inferring that because when the liquor store owners die, we see their corpses, but the sound design plays out the scene. As the camera lingers on the lifeless bodies, we hear the terror in the woman’s voice, we hear the shots fired that end their lives, and briefly, we hear Henry’s voice, telling the woman to shut-up.

Cut to Henry, casually driving his car and idly listening to a rock n’roll radio station. Then, smash cut to bloody sheets in a hotel room. The droning bass of the score, now a hellish drone. The camera slowly pans and the slow motion horror of this moment cannot be understated. The choice of weapon here catches you off guard. You don’t see it right away but as the camera slowly moves closer to the victim, the outline of a glass bottle protruding from her bloody mouth comes into focus as the source of the blood pouring down her neck to her chest.

And, smash cut back to Henry in his car, fiddling with the radio. It’s like I said before, McNaughton wants you to see the relationship between the mundanely normal activity of the Henry we see paralleled with his horrific crimes which have occurred offscreen. The duality is a perversion of normalcy, the boring day to day activities that even a psychopathic killer must engage in. McNaughton wants you to consider normal, everyday activities crossed with horrific, bloody death and understand that for Henry, killing is mundane, it’s just what he does. It’s no different for him from paying a bill at a diner or driving from here to there.

In less than 5 minutes, there is a body count of four innocent people. And Henry, he’s listening to the weather on the radio and smoking a cigarette. And, then we add a fifth victim just moments later. Another smash cut to a peaceful, pristine, outdoor location, slightly off by the presence of a milk jug floating in a pond, the sound hits us just as the camera pan reveals the body of another woman, face down, floating in the lake. The soundtrack echoes with her struggling to scream but a hand over her mouth muffles her before finishing her off and dropping her in that now befouled lake.

Back to Henry, he’s at a mall. And the cycle of perversion of normalcy, the outlier Henry in an otherwise innocuous location. He's here to choose a victim and he ends up following a woman back to her suburban home. This suburban home is another brilliantly dread filled location. Henry is the poisonous apple introduced to Snow White. He's a snake invading Eden. Having established that the mundane tends to hardcut to the horrific, your mind races to what might be coming next and the gruesome fantasy is thrust into your mind without having been shown to you.

John McNaughton's direction of Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer doesn't get enough credit. He's masterful in his choices. McNaughton, his cinematographer, Charlie Lieberman and editor, Elena Maganini work in concert to construct not only horrific sights but a style that communicates the themes that will play out both stylistically and from a sociological perspective. It's a remarkable feat of direction, one that is often lost in the examination of the brutality of the images of Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer. If you put aside the depravity of these displays, just a moment, and observe the cinematic technique at work here, you have to recognze McNaughton's remarkable skill.

This article on the underrated genius of Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer is the first entry in a new book I am writing about horror in the 90s. If you'd like to help me complete this book in which I plan to watch and write about as many of the horror movies of the 90s that I can get my hands on, then consider making a monthly pledge here on Vocal. You can also support my new venture by leaving a one time tip. Anyone who donates will be acknowledged in the book once it is published. Thanks!

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About the Creator

Sean Patrick

Hello, my name is Sean Patrick He/Him, and I am a film critic and podcast host for the I Hate Critics Movie Review Podcast I am a voting member of the Critics Choice Association, the group behind the annual Critics Choice Awards.

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