Bounding Into Halloween: ‘Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer’ And ‘Maniac’ (1980) Have Come To Slaughter Night 24
If there’s one thing that modern people obsess over more than themselves, it’s serial killers. The crazier they are, the larger their fanbase, and it’s no big surprise why so many of them are complete narcissists.
With that, we present tonight’s movies, which are both classics from the 80s that sparked a great amount of controversy upon their respective releases, but an even greater amount of morbid curiosity.
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
This brutal indie classic is the debut of iconic character actor, Michael Rooker (Tombstone, Mallrats, The Walking Dead, Guardians of the Galaxy Vols. 1 & 2), and he stars as the title character.
Henry is a homicidal maniac who goes around the country killing random men, women, and even children. He decides to get off the road for a while, and this brings him to a city where he should blend in with perfect ease: Chicago.
Shacking up with his drug-dealing prison buddy (Tom Towles) and the buddy’s sister (Tracy Arnold), he gets a job as an exterminator, but while still leaving room on his schedule to commit homicides. Henry’s roommate takes an interest in his line of work, and he begins to mentor the scuzzy pusherman in the art of murder.
A landmark in post-modern horror, Henry is still as rough and unflinching as it was nearly four decades ago. Every murder has an unsettling realness to them that would go unrivaled before The House That Jack Built came out in 2018, and became an official companion piece to it.
Rooker is almost too believable as a killer, and it’s no big surprise that he would go on to breathe charismatic life into villainous roles throughout his career.
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer is lurking over on TUBI, and the trailer is below:
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Maniac (1980)
If you think that Henry had problems, wait until you get a load of Frank Zito (Joe Spinell) in the infamous grindhouse classic by director William Lustig (Maniac Cop 1-3).
Frank is the survivor of a horrific childhood that involved an abusive prostitute mother, and he lives a reclusive life in his New York apartment full of mannequins, but this isn’t even the weirdest part.
This disturbed man spends all of his free time stalking, killing, and scalping young women for the sole purpose of stapling the bloody clump of stolen hair onto his mannequins at home.
He targets random nurses, models, and ladies who are in the same line of work as his late mother, but things get complicated when he meets a cute photographer (Caroline Munro) who obviously has a thing for fat, unattractive guys with mommy issues.
They start a weird relationship that begins to cut into Frank’s late night hobby, and things get ugly fast. This was especially true with critics, who had a cow when this movie came out.
Gene Siskel walked out of the theater after a measly 20 minutes, but this is also the same wuss who gave Aliens a low rating in 1986 just because the film depicted a child in danger.
Regardless of this anecdote, Maniac is a rough film that’s meant to be enjoyed by 80s slasher buffs, and it features the work of the then up-and-coming makeup wizard, Tom Savini (Dawn of the Dead, Friday the 13th).
Frank (and his mannequins) are waiting for you on TUBI, but here’s the trailer:
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