rpj's profile

rpj


URL:	http://www.lovefilm.com/profile/rpj

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20/04/2010

18:28: rpj rated The Galton And Simpson Playhouse - The Complete Series 5.0 stars
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19/06/2008

11:01: rpj rated Revenge Of Frankenstein 3.5 stars
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11:00: rpj rated Final Destination 3 1.0 stars
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Recent review

Grubby exploitation dressed as intellectual arthouse fare... , 19 April 2008

Henry - Portrait Of A Serial Killer on DVD (1986)
Starring: Michael Rooker, Tom Towles, Tracey Arnold
Director: John McNaughton
Certificate:
I absolutely despised this film when it was first released, but a friend recently suggested I watch it again. After all, he argued, the passing of the years might enable me to view the film from a more 'mature' angle.

I took his advice, and even though I switched off halfway this time, I have reminded my friend that he is responsible for me losing 45 minutes of my life which I could have spent watching something half-decent.

It was with great interest that I watched this film when it was originally released. I had read several reviews which gave the impression of a carefully presented investigation into the mind of a killer, and what makes them tick. I even remember the late esteemed critic Alexander Walker saying 'You absolutely must see this film'.

What I saw was a grubby, barrel-scraping cheapjack attempt at film making. Voyeuristic doesn't even begin to describe it, an opportunistic waste of celluloid which spends its entire running time wallowing in its own excrement, and stinks accordingly. I was frankly amazed that this had been passed by the BBFC, when there were many other, much tamer titles on the infamous 'video nasties' list.

Champions of this cinematic cesspool will possibly say that the point of the exercise is to pull the viewer into the events on screen and to make them question their response as a viewer. My response would have been laughter at the sheer ineptitude of the 'talents' involved behind the camera (to be fair, the cast are doing their best), had it not been for the fact that the thing I was really questioning was how long I would need to stay in the bath afterwards to wash off the stench and muck from this grubby little farrago.

The best thing to do with rubbish like this is to ignore it, and consign it to the footnotes of cinema history where it belongs. Meanwhile, if you want to see this kind of subject matter done brilliantly, rent Michael Powell's peerless 'Peeping Tom'. 7 out of 8 people found this review helpful

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