![]() ![]() ![]() Once the videotapes enter Henry’s life, a certain amount of plausible deniability goes totally out the window for him. He moves like the wind from one city to another, murdering, doing terrible things, and he begins a new life every time he passes through a city’s limits. They’re almost forgotten in a sense not by the viewer, but by Henry. These are the discarded bodies in the wake of Henry as he moves through various cities. ![]() In the beginning, we see shots of various, unknown women dead and brutalized. Via McNaughton, the videotapes are a way for Henry to truthfully remember the hideous crimes he’s committed. He doesn’t obsessively watch them like Otis, who does so for a sick erotic thrill after the fact. The camera and its videotapes further suggest truth, operating on a wavelength of ‘seeing is believing.’ The videotapes are a way for Henry to remember the crimes. The videotapes are nasty, and they’re a sick way for the fictionalized versions of these true to life murderers to get thrills after the fact. McNaughton uses the homemade video within his own movie to test the audience, almost as if he’s asking: do you want to see this? Is it necessary? In a way, it is necessary, and that’s because it’s symbolic of truth. That’s to say, in real life Lucas told many lies, so then the fictional Lucas cannot be fully culpable for all the crimes he confessed to unless there’s absolute proof of his actions. The camera’s most important suggestion here is in terms of culpability. It’s a kind of double-edged sword, in that there’s always a question of ethics when considering what violence the media shows, as well as how much. Initially, it serves as commentary on media and the public in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. On the other, the fictionalized inclusion of the video camera in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer carries significance. On the one hand, a lot of the alterations are innocuous. Most of their relationship is altered in the screenplay, excluding any mention of the cult, and even changing how they met. Still, the truth was always an obstacle for them, whether apart or together. The two men would confess to over one hundred killings as a pair. He told his own, but he and Lucas infamously both told authorities about supposedly being inducted into a murderous cult called The Hands of Death, despite nothing tangible to suggest this group ever existed. Toole was an equally horrific killer, though one not averse to telling lies. When considering the truth and lies of Lucas, it’s only proper that Ottis Toole (played here by Tom Towles) is included as a character alongside Henry. However, McNaughton utilises the widespread popularity of home video camcorders to put a camera in the possession of Lucas, and this pulls the audience directly inside his perspective, virtually unable to turn away from even the ugliest of details. Many horror movies about killers offer up the subject matter at a safe distance, where the viewer remains obscured on one side of the camera. ![]() The fascinating part about this movie is that, aside from a character study of a truly despicable and violent man, the way McNaughton presents the crimes of Lucas implicates the audience in a moral debate over their role in watching movies about real life murders and the men who commit them. But, how exactly does a director shape a movie about a serial killer known for elaborate and grandiose lies? It isn’t easy doing a fictional retelling about the life of Lucas, which makes both perception and truth prominent concepts in this movie. John McNaughton’s genre classic Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) is a riff on the actual life of Lucas, portrayed in chilling fashion by Michael Rooker. He wanted to take credit for any and every murder possible. Yet something compelled this man into a disturbing bravado. He was officially convicted of eleven murders, among a litany of other charges from robbery to rape. While Lucas’s verifiable crimes are bad enough, including the murder of his own mother, he also made claims after being incarcerated implicating him in literally several thousand killings. This wasn’t the case for Henry Lee Lucas, arguably one of the nastier American serial killers on record. Even if it’s only a white lie, its purpose is usually to absolve the person telling it from responsibility or, more often than not, from guilt. Most people lie in order to get out of trouble. ![]()
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