MovieChat Forums > Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1991) Discussion > The scene where they kill the family fee...

The scene where they kill the family feels so brutally real

posted 3 years ago by Mister Babadook (2709)
7 replies | jump to latest

Some think this movie is tame and not as brutal as its made out to be or not that bad compared to other serial killer films, yes it is, it has a brutal realness to it other films don't imo.

That scene where they kill the family is the most brutal realistic looking scene in a horror movie i think i've ever seen, legit looks like two serial killers filming themselves with an old video recorder murdering a family. The old grainy bad quality video recorder helps add to its realness as well.

And the way its done, with Otis groping the wife and ripping her clothes off while the husband is gagged and tied up in the floor having to listen to it. Then the kid walks in while his mother is being sexually assaulted by two psychopaths, then Henry grabs him and breaks his neck infront of his mother, they kill the mother, kill the father, and Otis continues sexually assaulting the body while shes dead and using her like a puppet.

Man its one of the most brutal realistic feeling scenes i've seen in a horror movie, its so unsettling.

[–] kwestmo (4385) 3 years ago

yes

[–] ShogunofYonkers (78505) 2 years ago

From what I’ve read this scene caused a lot of walkouts at initial screenings. It was the most harrowing scene in the movie imo.

[–] liscarkat (19396) 2 years ago

There should have been an eventual scene in which Henry and Otis get strapped to the electric chair and fried to death.

[–] Mister Babadook (2709) 2 years ago

Otis i think got a much more brutal end than that though lol, stabbed to death and chopped up into pieces.

[–] Aylmer (620) 14 days ago

The movie is mainly brutal in how it suggests a lot of offscreen violence but only a few murders really happen in grisly detail on screen. The fat guy selling TV's has a pretty nasty death scene in my opinion, especially with him half-dead getting a TV smashed around his head to wear as a "Crown" in his final moments of life.

The family scene is something else entirely. It's so well acted and directed that you forget that you're watching a movie. I think it's also the entire reason that the film got on so many "most disturbing movie ever made" lists.

[–] Mister Babadook (2709) 14 days ago

Yeah and i think the cherry on top of that family scene, at the end of it we pan out and realize Henry and Otis are watching it on tv after the act has already been committed. They're legit just watching it as entertainment like a tv show, and after it ends Otis begins rewinding and says he wants to watch it again. Which even Henry seems confused by, honestly Otis seems way more fucked up than Henry in alot of ways.

Henry is a heartless killer, but Otis is way more depraved about it and enjoys it more, Henry will brutally kill you, but Otis will sexually assault them and play with them and endlessly wanna see it over and over again. Henry felt like a killer was just who he was, but he wasn't happy about it, he looked very cold and depressed almost all the time, but killing was just in his nature and he accepted it. Otis just felt like a kid in a candy store whenever he killed, then he would just go on to drink a beer at home with his sister like nothing even happened.

[–] Aylmer (620) 13 days ago

Yeah it's an interesting dichotomy as the two represent very different forms of evil. Henry has some shred of honor and cunning to him whereas Otis is just chaotic and cruel. Both have no problem with killing people, though you get the sense that Henry feels that he has to and Otis finds delight in it. He alludes to having killed someone before but it's only when he finds out that Henry is a serial killer that he suddenly removes all restraint and just starts killing and raping for fun.

It's an interesting take but I think the real life Henry Lee Lucas and Otis Toole were both pretty equally depraved and immoral. I think they both routinely had sex with each other and several relatives and did a lot of drugs, thieving, raping (and murdering) over the course of several years before being brought to justice. A really depraved time in American history when killers were just kinda roaming around doing things like that and not getting caught.