Henry was definitely not the first serial killer movie. For that, you need to go back to Fritz Lang’s M (1930), maybe further. But it came out early in the most recent cycle of these films; after Manhunter, (based on the novel Red Dragon, later re-made as
Red Dragon) but before Silence of the Lambs. Are you with me so far? Recently, the TV show Criminal Minds has been a big success, with its serial killer of the week, and large numbers of reruns shown.
It’s a good show. You can feel the agony of the good guys, members of the FBI’s BAU team, as they try to feel inside the minds of the murderers they track down.
Yet, good as the show is, watching serial killers hunted over and over on TV does take some of the newness, the shock, away. Watching this movie, I wished for a time machine to take me back to the pre-Criminal Minds days.
Henry is not the most violent or scariest of these movies (although it is right up near the top). But the movie tells its story with great power. You watch the killers, feeling constant tension, wondering when they will snap and start the violence again.
Because so much of the time, they are on the
edge…walking time bombs.
Yet still you feel empathy for Henry, hearing him
matter-of-factly describe his brutal childhood. His mother
was a prostitute who forced Henry to watch her have sex, making
him wear a dress while he watched. And he was likely sexually abused himself. Not much else you need to know.
Even more, you find yourself rooting for Henry; for him to find love (as we all want to) and to find some way to stop killing. Do you feel guilty for this?
Of course. Anyone in their right mind would. Yet you hear him recount his childhood memories, and watch his tentative moves at kindness and you stop feeling as guilty as before.
The plot is fairly simple. Henry and Otis, who met in prison, are both on parole now, sharing a grimy apartment in Chicago. Henry is quiet and respectful most of the time, but at random moments will suddenly kill, with no remorse. Then Becky, Otis’ sister, comes north to stay with them, find work and save up some money. She misses her little girl, but is glad to get away from her
abusive husband.
She likes Henry right away, and he is flattered by her kindness. Her feelings seem to bring out the best in him. Meanwhile, Otis’ fury, repressed up till then by drinking and crude, mean humor, begins to break the surface. Otis dreams of finding the nerve to kill for pleasure.
Henry actually encourages him. For awhile, they are ideal partners, killing together with great satisfaction, including one devastating home invasion. But Becky’s feelings for Henry make the situation more difficult. For the first time, you feel serious tension between Henry and Otis.
What gives Henry its power, besides the gore, and the two men’s blindness to the lives they snuff out so easily? First, the empathy for Henry the movie generates.
Thomas Harris, novelist, and creator of Hannibal Lecter, does make you understand Lecter’s motivations, and those of Francis Dolarhyde (Red Dragon). You taste the horrors that made them who they are.
For example, the novel Red Dragon shows you Dolarhyde’s doomed struggle to take another road. A blind woman at his job comes on to him, and is more than satisfied by his first experience making love. Dolarhyde is obsessed with a piece of art by
the great engraver/poet William Blake, titled The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun.
The dragon becomes a lifeforce of sorts for him; it has brought
Dolarhyde his first-ever sense of personal fulfillment, personal
strength. But it is an insanely jealous, furious totem, one that inspires him to multiple killings. Dolarhyde has found a cautious sense of happiness with Reba, a woman who feels something comforting in him. Something he had never guessed
about himself.
Dolarhyde starts to cover the dragon’s image in his house. He tries to steal an original Blake print from a museum. When he succeeds, he eats the entire print. One agent chasing the serial killer figures this. could be the same man.
The agent’s comment is devastatingly simple. “Maybe he’s trying to stop.”
Why am I telling this? The point is, neither movie version of Red Dragon was able to translate this part of the killer’s struggle. Both show the sex, but how it changes Dolarhyde is never made clear. Possibly the directors worried about the time this would
have required.
Maybe Henry’s life is less complicated, his conflicts easier to read. As a result, the scenes with him and Becky have great power, even though you have already seen him kill many times. Becky, much damaged herself (sexually abused by her father and by Otis) gives Henry a different view of a woman. A woman harder to distance himself from, not a blank unknown he looks at behind car windows.
Becky—unexpected innocence despite an abusive past
You may see Becky as hopelessly naïve, even stupid. I see her in another light.
Maybe I’m naïve, but Becky seems to me an individual who has suffered abuse, yet has survived it partially intact.
People can argue that her taste in men is horrible. That is
hard to argue. Her husband is in jail, charged with murder She tells Henry she loves him. Enough.
Yet Becky somehow has held onto her faith in
people, though the movie never explains how. Maybe she had
childhood friends who were good to her, and she spent enough time in their homes to get an idea how healthier families function.
Possibly a minister or schoolteacher cared about her.
Whatever happened, Becky held onto her faith in people. For a painfully short time, she can reach Henry. You get a glimpse at what Henry could have been, had he gotten any love, years before. Those few seconds when Becky is ready to
make love…you can read many possibilities in Henry’s eyes.
One is pure fear—he’s never associated sex before with anything but pain. Second: him not understanding; he’s trying to get the faintest idea what it’s like to be intimate with a woman….one who’s never been unkind, never hurt him. Third, saddest, a glimmer of hope that he might experience closeness without getting hurt.
Seeing Henry’s vulnerability might make you care about him more than Dolarhyde or Lecter (and no knock on the great actors who played them–Brian Cox, Ralph fiennes, Anthony Hopkins).
Michael Rooker (Henry), was an unknown then, except to people who had seen him onstage in Chicago.
He has done excellent work ever since (Sea of Love, Rosewood, Music Box, many others) but his performance here
equals any of those.
Michael Rooker as Henry
A scene much earlier hints too that Henry is more than just pure killing machine. You can’t tell for sure what it proves. But it may cause you to pray for Henry’s redemption.
In Silence, FBI agent Starling describes the killer this way: ”
…he’s getting areal taste for it.” This could describe Otis as well. All he needs is a few small pushes from Henry to join him in killing.
Otis (Tom Towles)—a mean, sleazy outer shell…masking even
worse
Henry is happy to explain how he has avoided being caught. He takes for granted that Otis shares his value for human life—just slightly more than zero.
The two men break into a comfortable suburban home. A husband and wife present; they tie the husband up, leaving him lying on the floor; he can’t look away.
Henry has usually done his killings quickly.
Now he watches as Otis, in no hurry, roughs up the wife, tearing off her blouse and bra…enjoying it. Their son comes home, interrupting them for a second before Henry simply snaps the boy’s neck. Another quick, cold kill. The husband manages to
kick Henry; Henry stabs him repeatedly.
You know for sure, Otis wants to rape the wife. Henry makes it clear to Otis, absolutely not. Otis is not about to confront him.
This scene may remind you of a similar one in
A Clockwork Orange. The film styles look incredibly different…no
big surprise. What the scenes have in common are home
invaders with no sense of human life…these families are no more than fleas to them. You don’t want to watch what Otis willl do to this woman. You knew it would be ugly.
Some therapists who work with hardened criminals say they look for a point where the criminals draw a line. Some say they will not molest a child, for example, or kill an elderly person. An attitude like this may indicate that they can eventually reach this person, hard as that may be.
Maybe this is why you may cling to hope for Henry, even as you call yourself a fool for feeling that way. Rape is probably something he suffered himself. Knowing this makes his actions that much more powerful.
You don’t want to remind yourself it’s already too late for Henry. He has taken so many lives already.
For the record, I would never want a real
Henry out walking the streets. He is simply existing in
another place from most of us—Killing is a non-issue.
Still. Perhaps this is why we find ourselves praying for him, even while we feel self-contempt for our prayers. The more we search for signs of good in Henry, the more we do it for ourselves.