- Directed by John McNaughton
- Written by Richard Fire, John McNaughton
- Stars MIchael Rooker, Tracy Arnold, Tom Towles
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 23 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBDbeoxHpow
Spoiler-free Judgment Zone
It’s based on a real guy, and it feels like we spend the time just watching him do what he does. It has the feel of a documentary more than a story, but it was interesting getting a glimpse of what such a prolific killer might have been like in real life.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open on a dead body, naked and dumped in the weeds. We cut to Henry, who just finished his breakfast at the diner. We get glimpses, possibly a flashback, of a store robbery and dead shopkeepers. We cut to a woman tied up in a bathroom with a glass bottle stuck through her face. We then cut to a dead woman floating face-down in a pond.
Henry parks at the mall and scopes out people in his car mirror. He picks one and starts following her. When he sees the woman has a husband, he moves on. He picks up a hitchhiker, and it ends poorly for the guy.
Otis picks up his sister Becky at the airport, and he says she looks terrible; her husband left her. She wants to get a job, make some money, and maybe bring her baby to town. Henry comes in and gives Otis a guitar; we saw the guitar with the hitchhiker earlier.
Henry works as an exterminator, and he uses the sprayer to gain access into women’s houses. We soon see a woman let him in, and she ends up strangled offscreen.
Becky asks Otis where he met Henry: Van Dalia prison. “He killed his mama with a baseball bat.” She later talks to Henry about his family. She admits that she was abused growing up. She asks Henry about killing his mother, and he admits it. She was a whore, and sometimes she’d make him wear a dress. He tells the story, but some of the details are inconsistent, so he’s probably lying about it.
Otis tries to take advantage of his sister, but Henry stops him. The two men then go out for some fun and pick up a pair of hookers. Henry kills them both, and oh, does Otis ever look surprised! Henry says nothing’s going to happen when they find the bodies, but Otis is clearly upset. “You telling me you never killed anybody before?” Nope.
Otis kicks out the TV screen, so the two decide to “go shopping.” They go see a fence for a new TV. The fence gives them a hard time, so they kill him and take what they want– a color TV and a camcorder.
Otis and Henry go out again, and this time, Henry gives Otis a gun. They flag down a passing driver, and Otis kills him. Henry asks, “Feel better?” Henry narrates the life of a serial killer as Otis records on the camcorder. He explains the “rules” about not getting caught.
They break into a family home and kill the husband, wife, and son as they record the whole thing. Otis gets frisky with the dead woman, but Henry gets angry and makes him stop. Otis breaks the camera and throws it out the car window.
Becky thinks it’s time to go back home to her daughter, and Henry isn’t happy to hear it. She invites him to go along, and he says he’ll think about it. She takes her shirt off, and Henry doesn’t quite know what to do, but then Otis interrupts.
Henry goes out for a walk, and when he returns, he finds Otis raping Becky. Henry comes in, and Becky stabs Otis in the eye. Henry then finishes him off. He then cuts up Otis into little pieces and puts him in luggage; the luggage soon finds its way into the river.
Henry and Becky drive away. They stop at a motel, and in the morning, Henry drives away. He drops off Becky’s bloody luggage on the side of the road. What happened to Becky? I think we can guess.
Commentary
It’s a fictionalized biography of a real-life serial killer. The four early shots of crime scenes were based on four of Henry Lee Lucas’s real-life murders. He was convicted of eleven murders but claimed to have done more than 600.
It’s surprisingly non-violent compared to a lot more standard horror films; it’s also missing a lot of the usual horror tropes, which is what caused a lot of controversy when it was released. It’s filmed more like a documentary than a horror film. There’s very little blood or gore. Yes, lots of people die, but they’re usually very clean deaths. There are no police shown at any point in the film, and there aren’t really any “good guys” in the movies. It feels like we’re just watching Henry do what he does, and he doesn’t get caught at the end.