H.H. Holmes: America's First Serial Killer

Torture chambers, acid vats, greased chutes and gassing rooms were just some of the devices of death designed by the Torture Doctor, H.H. Holmes in his castle of horrors. Follows Holmes' entire life as a criminal mastermind.

As a resident of Wisconsin, I have always found serial murder interesting. Yes, I do think there is a connection, because we have Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer in our state legends. And HH Holmes, being from Chicago, is one of those that captures my interest -- Chicago is the closest large city, and its history is almost local.

This is a pretty good documentary. Of course, being a story that happened in the 1800s, you can only have so much video footage. But they flesh it out with photos, reenactments, and plenty of modern-day experts on Holmes and murder. I was pleased, and at just over an hour it gives you plenty of information without dragging on.

I came to this movie after seeing its rave review on Bloody-Disgusting.com. A fan of historical crime writer Harold Schechter's (who is interviewed in this film), I was surprised and delighted to see someone had attempted a documentary on H.H. Holmes, the subject of Schechter's book "Depraved". Then again, I suppose it wasn't too surprising, given the bestseller success of Erik Larsen's "The Devil in the White City", and the upcoming movie of same.

John Borowski knows his way around the documentary form, inter-cutting vintage photos, interviews, and clever re-enactments with a strong sense of balance. HHH:AFSK succeeds in conveying a sense of time and place, and communicating Holmes's psychosis. The narrative is gripping, and there's never a dull moment here. Unlike a lot of indie documentary directors, Borowski knows that making a documentary is still all about Film-making, not merely filmed journalism.

If HHH:AFSK lacks in any department, it is in conveying the full, jaw-dropping magnitude of Holmes's most audacious crime: his systematic murder of the Pitezel family, carried out while manipulating them to travel in two separate groups halfway across the US and even into Canada. Borowski also leaves out the detail that, on this evil trek, Holmes was also dragging along one of his three clueless wives! Borowski surprisingly rushes through the journey, making it all seem like just another of Holmes's outrageous deeds. Compared to the way Schechter evoked the cruelty of Holmes's actions and the heartbreaking emotional trauma suffered by the Pitezel children's mother in his book "Depraved", Borowski misses a chance for some really strong emotional depth.

But some things are, I suppose, going to get left out in an hour-long production. The running time is kind of odd. Too long to sell to TV (this film is certainly worthy of the History Channel, on which I have seen considerably worse stuff), too short for feature length. And yet, by the time it's over, you feel that to go to 90 minutes might have been just a shade too much. At 64 minutes, HHH:AFSK is perhaps just right, artistically — though 70-75 would have been ideal, allowing Borowski to flesh out the story as I described above. Commercially, 64 minutes is problematic. Perhaps a direct-to-DVD release was all Borowski had in mind from the first.

Veteran actor Tony Jay provides brilliant narration with his one-of-a-kind voice (why isn't this man more famous!?), and there's a swell orchestral, Bernard Hermann-esquire score that I'm surprised Borowski was able to get. If anything gave me an unintentional smile watching the DVD, it was perhaps Borowski's tireless self-promotion in the bonus materials. I'd have gladly sacrificed Borowski's efforts on his making-of featurette if he had channeled that work into just a bit more of his documentary.

A worthy film for fans of true crime and American history rolled into one.

This should have just been some kind of podcast. Seriously? LOL all it showed was some old photographs. I gave it four stars for finally outing his grandson about all his historical inaccuracies in his book Bloodstains.

If you are a fan of True Crime, H.H.HOLMES:America's First Serial Killer, is a short, but informative biography of one of America's lesser known, yet spectacular, mass murderers. The fact that Dr. Holmes was able to construct a 'Murder Mansion' in the center of Chicago, and then freely troll the 1893 Worlds Columbian Expositon for victims is nothing short of astonishing. This structure, which took up an entire city block, and included living quarters, shops, and rooms for rent, was honeycombed with numerous torture chambers, execution rooms, and secret passages. Many graves and burial sites were linked to H.H. Holmes, yet rarely was there enough evidence to positively connect him to the bodies. In the late 19th century The Bertillon Method was employed to identify victims. This was a system which used physical comparisons of body parts, and for the most part, was based on conjecture and guess work. The Bertillon Method was the cornerstone of forensic science at the time, and fingerprint technology was still several years in the future. This huge deficit in investigative procedure allowed Holmes to get away with many of his crimes, and it makes one wonder how many of his sinister and horrific killings remain undetected to this day. Everyone is familiar with Jack The Ripper, however H.H. Holmes is, by far, a more terrifying and baleful figure. The film employs a fairly effective use of 'voice over, and archival photos to examine this most gruesome individual. This entire documentary can be streamed at You Tube.

Alright. Not much to say, other than READING is far more entertaining than this horribly narrated and presented documentary is. I will just get right down to what wasn't good about it. And there wasn't that much bad about it. It's just that the falling points to the film are constant and never expand nor decrease.

The narrator to me was like an older Ben Stein telling me all about the 19th century. I really don't like listening to Ben Stein attempt to educate me. The information is also poorly presented. For example, a big part about Holmes was his building he designed. Now they do have a segment on it, but they really don't emphasize (enough in my opinion) how he really went about it. They did a sad little black and white RE-ENACTMENT of a innocent victim going through the labyrinth and being caught and placed inside the trap-walls. But it seriously just belittled Holmes.

The chronology was poorly paced and just didn't have much direction to it. I found myself wondering what was pacing through Holmes as his evil began to really take part.

Now I understand that Holmes existed before modern science and psychology, so everything about who he was, how he was, and all of that is pure assumption. But we have a thing called educated guess and I don't think anyone will be upset about several educated guesses to breathe some life into the film. This was not done at all.

The entire film seemed to drag on. The first thirty minutes felt like two hours. Literally. I was hoping that it would pick up so pace towards the end. But it actually just slowed down.

Overall, this film is very educational, but I would seriously recommend having some background knowledge first. I would seriously expect this film to be on a shelf at some high school; an idle threat to force the students to watch and take notes on the film. Because it's extremely dry on a very INTERESTING subject. Honestly though. You will thank me and yourself for picking up a book or essay vice watching this dry cardboard cut out of HHHolmes.