Horror in the 90s Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer

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. And yet, director John McNaughton has already set the tone. The plasticine perfection of nature in our imagination slowly melting to a horrifying and harsh reality. 

The movement from the mundane to the horrific is another 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, we here the terror in the woman’s voice, we hear the shots fired that end their lives, and briefly 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, 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. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Movie Review Slither

Slither (2006) 

Directed by James Gunn

Written by James Gunn

Starring Nathan Fillion, Elizabeth Banks, Michael Rooker, Gregg Henry, Jenna Fischer

Release Date March 31st, 2006

Published March 30th, 2006 

I am in a major conflict with myself over the movie Slither. On the one hand, I laughed a lot while watching it. On the other hand, Slither is so vile and so disgusting I'm not sure that I can recommend it in good conscience. I know you believe you have a strong stomach and a love of ironic humor but Slither is so polarized in its humor and horror that many audiences will find it hard to enjoy both of those aspects at once.

In the tiny town of Wheelsy the most important time of the year is the opening of deer hunting season. The entire town seemingly shows up at one tiny little bar in the middle of town to drink beer, sing songs and plan their hunting parties for the following morning.

This year however hunting season will have a whole new meaning. Somewhere in the forest a meteorite has struck the earth and what is inside is an insidious alien being bent on consuming the entire human race. First up is the lecherous businessman Grant Grant (Michael Rooker), no typo his first and last name are Grant. In the woods after a night of drinking and preparing to cheat on his wife Starla (Elizabeth Banks), Grant stumbles across the meteorite and becomes the aliens first victim.

Grant is not dead, rather, he has become the alien delivery vessel. He carries the alien seed that will infect the entire town and eventually the world. The aliens take the form of slimy, disgusting slugs that leap into the mouths of victims turning people into flesh eating zombies.

Standing between the aliens and world domination is Wheelsy's easy going sheriff Bill Pardy (Nathan Fillion). An unassuming slacker, Pardy has remained in Wheelsy his whole life because he really had nothing better to do. He has, for years, nursed a serious crush on Starla but sadly watched as she tried only to leave Wheelsy before settling for a life of comfort with Grant.

Now the sheriff and Starla have to team together to find Grant and stop the alien invasion. They are aided by the venal Wheelsy mayor Jack McReady (Gregg Henry) and a teenage girl, Kylie (Tania Saulnier) who survives an attack by the aliens and gains the power to see their plan in full completion.

Much of Slither plays like the kind of ironic detached horror comedy that I truly love.

Minor touches like Starla and Grant's song being a super-cheeseball tune by Air Supply which we hear at the most unnerving moments are just brilliant.

The humor extends to the casting where the ultra-creepy Michael Rooker could not be more suitably cast as the sad, tragic and disgusting Grant Grant. Rooker, who played, arguably, the most terrifying screen villain in the history of the horror genre in Henry: Portrait of A Serial Killer, is unafraid to tweak his creepy persona for a few big laughs. His commitment to the character is unnerving leaving this critic with the wonderful inside joke of Rooker maybe having played Grant in a full on method performance, never breaking character.

Written and directed by James Gunn, who did an exceptional job adapting a new version of George Romero's Dawn of The Dead, Slither is one of the most stomach churning horror films in the history of the genre. That is not surprising considering Gunn's history with the ultimate purveyor of disgust in the industry, Troma films founder and filmmaker Lloyd Kaufman.

No one knows gross, not the box office kind, like Lloyd Kaufman and his influence can be felt throughout the more stomach turning moments of Slither.

The film plays like Gunn's attempt to fuse Troma style gut churning gross out with a mainstream sci fi, horror and comedy film. The attempt is brave but the results are mixed. Slither works in making its audience ill from its brand of gross out gags, eviscerated animals, oversized exploding humans and those dreadful slugs, but fails at times to keep up the energy needed to keep the audience fully engaged beyond needing pepto-bismol.

The film is very funny, with especially humorous performances by Nathan Fillion and Elizabeth Banks. Fillion's deadpan humor in the face of so much disgustingness is a real treat. Banks for her part, is funny and sexy in equal measure. Watch the scene where the hunting party searching for the now alien infested Grant find him in a field and Banks' Starla talks of marriage as a sacred unbreakable bond, very funny stuff.

There is alot to love about Slither and yet I cannot fully endorse the film. Maybe this was the film's intent all along, but I was made physically ill by the end of Slither. Do not eat before you see Slither because you may not be able to keep it down, it's that disgusting. If the filmmakers were judging the movie on how many patrons ran for the bathrooms at the end, they have a major success on their hands. However when that sickly feeling makes you forget about so much of what you enjoyed about the movie, is that really a success?

Movie Review: Undisputed

Undisputed (2002) 

Directed by Walter Hill 

Written by David Giler, Walter Hill

Starring Ving Rhames, Wesley Snipes, Peter Falk, Michael Rooker, Jon Seda, Master P, Wes Studi 

Release Date August 23rd, 2002

Published December 2nd, 2002 

Of all the film genres that have become slaves to the cliches that made them, none is more trapped in cliche than the sports movie. Ever since Rocky, the sports movie has been doomed to the cliches of the big game, big fight, big moment. If it's a team game like baseball or football the team will be stocked with overused characters. 

Characters like the star, the jerk, the fat guy, the foreigner and the joker, and of course the troubled rookie who doesn't think he can make it but ends up winning the game. If it's a one-on-one sport like boxing then the film is doomed to repeat the cliches Rocky bred, i.e. the underdog overcoming great odds to succeed. It is these cliches that make Walter Hill's Undisputed stand out from most other sports movies. Hill's film breaks from genre cliches which makes Undisputed a surprisingly entertaining sports movie.

The film stars Wesley Snipes as Monroe Hutchins, the heavyweight champion boxer of the California State penal system. Hutchens is in prison for life for murdering a man who was sleeping with his wife. In his time in prison Monroe has spent ten years in the prison-boxing program and has won 68 consecutive fights. 

Enter the man who is THE world heavyweight champion, George "The Iceman" Chambers (Ving Rhames). Having just been convicted of rape, a charge that he vehemently denies, Chambers is sent to the same prison where Hutchins has become champion. To avoid problems, Hutchins is placed in solitary confinement where he remains for a month until an ex-mobster named Mendy Ripstein (Peter Falk) pulls some strings to set up a fight between Hutchins and The Iceman.

What is most surprising about Undisputed is that director Walter Hill is actually able to raise a solid level of suspense. The audience honestly has no idea who will win the fight. To achieve this Hill strips away both fighters’ likability, leaving the audience little rooting interest and yet there remains actual suspense thanks to Hill's exceptional direction. In a genre where the outcomes are usually tipped off well ahead of time, it's a rather remarkable feat to inject real, honest to goodness, suspense and unpredictability. 

Ignore the cover box of the Undisputed video and DVD with it's helicopters and fire. This is not an action movie, there are no daring escapes, no explosions, not even any fire. The only thing explosive about Undisputed is it's punches which Walter Hill choreographs well. By shucking traditional boxing rules and putting into the script that the fight is non traditional boxing, Hill frees the two stars from having to fake their way through boxing technique. In this fight they simply throw punches and fall down.

There are flaws in Undisputed. Such as the fact that I highly doubt, or at least hope, that prisons are not spending tax dollars on elaborate boxing cages with pay per view quality lighting rigs and an announcer played by former MTV personality Ed Lover. But that is a minor quibble. In the end when you combine Snipes’ and Rhames’ quality performances and Walter Hill's sure handed direction you get a quality entertaining sports movie. A very rare commodity.