Confessions of a Serial Killer

This movie is one of the most realistic and scariest movies that I have ever seen. It is about the real life killer named Henry Lee Lucas and his sidekick Otis Toole. When I watched this movie I felt as if I were there because the acting was good and the way that the movie was made it looked very much real. The scenes in this movie were disturbing because these things could actually happen in real life done in these sick ways. It was chilling and being a reader of such serial killers such as this man here made it all the more horrific. I give it an 8.

This is a perfect little movie in its way, succeeding as a voyeuristic experience from start to finish with just the right balance of banality, surprise, horror, disgust and curiosity-arousal & satisfaction. Like watching the seamier part of life through a perpetual keyhole. The art is in the actors & director never giving the appearance of "artfulness". Bravo!!!

When HBO hit bottom several years ago, they played bad movies over and over again because it was all their budget could afford. They have since reformed, but at the time they showed this, um, manure so many times a day I actually removed HBO and Cinemax (they were sold as a package then) from my cable subscription.

Everything about this movie, from the "acting", directing and script is the worst you will find outside Manos: the Hands of Fate. The movie is depressing in the extreme; take a repellent character, have him confess to a long list of random murders in "flashbacks" (relayed to stone-faced deputies wearing a little too much makeup), add in lots of helpless victims and sadism, and you have this movie. It almost appears to be a booster film for would-be serial killers; the characters, slack-jawed and stupid though they are, are presented as invincible, getting away with every sadistic killing they commit, with the editing showing the victims *just* missing the chance to escape or scream for help. It's hard to tell who is more sadistic, the characters, the editors, the film-makers, or the agitated viewers who wrote glowing reports over this trash. I thought it was the film-makers until I read these reviews. Scary. There is a 2000 year-old Greek adage which translate to "garbage feeds on garbage." I didn't understand it when younger, but it is starting to make sense to me now.

This movie does not enlighten, it only dehumanizes and desensitizes.

Avoid this movie unless you never go outside, have no normal friends, and enjoy the suffering of others. One star.

This brilliant, unsettling film was glossed over in favor of the higher profile maelstrom of ratings controversy, "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer." That's a shame, because, like John McNaughton's brilliant low budget film, Mark Blair's "Confessions" is extremely well made, has an emphasis on documentary-like distance over horror movie theatrics, and some wonderfully seedy and intense characterizations. Genre addicts disappointed by "Henry" will be pleased by this film which "delivers the goods" in spades. Veteran genre production designer ("Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Re-Animator") Robert A. Burns steps in front of the camera as "Confessions'" Henry Lee Lucas substitute, Daniel Ray Hawkins. Nondescript and passive, a captured Hawkins relates the murderous swath he cut across the rural South to skeptical cops in a series of flashbacks that include his abusive childhood, his routine of picking up female hitchhikers, home invasions, and quick stop holdups turned bloodbaths, all documented via his trusty Polaroid camera. Closer to the actual events than "Henry," "Confessions" gives us a substitute Ottis Toole in the form of "Ole Moon," Daniel's partner in slime, an overweight homosexual serial killer who brings along his equally deranged sister for the ride. Although the last act is a tad anticlimatic and the secondary characters' performances are sometimes uneven, but this is an excellent, shocking movie. Like "Henry," it was shot on 16mm by local filmmakers, sat on the shelf for many years, has many similarities in tone and style, and was snatched up to capitalize on the success of a certain Jonathan Demme film when serial killers were hot stuff. Concorde even whipped up ad art with a guy in a Hannibal Lector mask! Aided immeasurably by a creepy synth score by William Penn and solidly directed by Blair, don't watch this one alone.

8/10

This film takes the glamor out of serial killin'. The titular murder is a simple man, and his country-boy manner and affability caused me to like him in the scenes where he was not hacking at women and then copulating with their corpses. The happy-go-lucky sidekick character--an essential element of the Henry Lee Lucas story--is especially sleazy in this film, which is a nice touch, I think. The fact that he is named "Moon" only sweetens the pot. I am a fan of disturbing cinema, and this film definitely disturbs. I found "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" absolutely unwatchable, simply due to its lack of plot, characters, and satisfying gore. This movie, on the other hand, boasts down-home characters, good performances, vile acts of posthumous sodomy, and paints a gritty portrait of what it is like to house an insatiable bloodlust. The other obvious advantage over "Henry" is that the more acclaimed picture lacked the proper plot structure necessary for such a film. This movie, on the other hand, with its flashback setup, is a tasty treat from start to finish. I give it three stars out of five.