Today the FAM presents John McNaughton’s 1986 low budget cult classic Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Released in 1990 after years of battling with various censors over its content it is, perhaps, one of most effective horror movies of the past two decades, forgoing piles of gore for a documentarian approach to the genre.

The titular Henry, played by Michael Rooker, is a drifter, who just happens to leave a trail of bodies behind him. Indeed, the first thing we see is the body of a nude woman in a field, after which we see Henry as he goes about his day with scenes from other crime scenes interspersed throughout. It is only later, when our other two main characters show up, Becky (Tracy Arnold) who has left her husband to stay with her brother, the incredibly creepy Otis (Tom Towles) in Chicago, that we are formally introduced to Henry or, at least, the Henry that presents himself to the world.

Rooker’s performance here is excellent, displaying a strained awkwardness that serves as a mostly successful veneer for the terrifying person underneath. It’s a cover that completely disappears when he’s out looking for victims. Towles, for his part, manages to play a character who is actually creepier than the psychopath he is paired up with. Arnold may be the weakest link among the three. Her character is too direct, her dialog too on the nose, but there is just enough there to get the audience to care about her. Her penultimate scene in Otis’s apartment is completely expected and yet that makes it no less horrifying.

Made for a $110,000 in less than a month, Henry was inspired by real life killer Henry Lee Lucas who, at one time, was thought to be one of America’s most prolific serial killers. (It was later revealed that while Lucas had confessed to over 600 murders, most of them he could not have committed and was simply confessing to whatever cold case was put in front of him in exchange for improved accommodations in prison.) Interestingly, Henry’s story of his mother is surprisingly close to that of Lucas’s who also was a violent prostitute who often forced him to watch her while she had sex with clients. She would also make him wear girl’s clothing and dresses and his father actually did lose both his legs, after being struck by a freight train.

Due to the budget constraints, many of the actors were close friends of McNaughton. One of them, Mary Demas, appears as three different dead (or soon to be dead) people: the dead woman in the field, the dead woman in the bathroom, and one of the prostitutes Henry kills with Otis. The street scenes are devoid of extras as, again, there was no money to hire any, so the two men having an argument in front of the subway that Becky emerges from were not acting, they just refused to move. Rooker apparently stayed in character on and off set for the entire 28 days and was so unsettling to be around that his wife, after have found out she was pregnant, waited until after shooting had ended to tell him.

It’s a a tour de force of low-budget film-making. Shot in 16mm, it’s a film that feels strangely real. Watching Henry is like watching an unmarked video found along the road, evidence hastily disposed of. You are watching something you weren’t meant to see, and so are absorbed by it and, in some ways, complicit in the events that unfold. It almost feels like something you should turn in to the police.

It’s a sentiment very much echoed in the scene of Henry and Otis (having been taken under Henry’s wing) watching a video they shot (using a camcorder acquired earlier through less than legal means) of the pair during a home invasion in which they kill a man, woman, and their son. As the video ends, Otis hits rewind causing Henry to ask “What are you doin’?” To which Otis replies, simply “I want to see it again.” Watching it again he goes over the segment of himself assaulting the wife and mother frame by frame, as much an indictment of their voyeurism as ours.

Another week another FAM. Time to FAM it up FAM style. FAM to the MAX! FAMtacular FAMmery.

Ok, that’s enough of that. (Editors Note: Please PLEASE, stop drinking at work.)

Today we present 1979’s 80 Blocks From Tiffany’s, directed by Gary Weis of All You Need Is Cash and Saturday Night Live fame. I first found this movie three years ago and it still fascinates me. Following two gangs from the South Bronx, the Savage Skulls and the Nomads, it provides a fascinating snapshot of New York as it limped out of one of it’s worst decades. It plays much better as a time capsule, I think, then a gang documentary. If you ever wondered how anyone could come up with the aesthetics of a movie like The Warriors, here’s your answer.

Hulu had the only embeddable copy of this. For readers in territories that cannot view Hulu, however, you can watch the whole thing here, on the distributor’s official YouTube channel.

It’s Friday again and you are sick and tired of this damn job! Stupid job. Stupid boss, with his/her stupid shirt and his/her stupid face. It’s time to rise up! Time to flip over your desk and set it on fire. Then go punch your boss in the face. FUCK THE MAN!

Ok, well, maybe it’s not time for that but it is time for The FAM, and today we’re showing The Weather Underground, Sam Green and Bill Siegel’s 2002 documentary about the Weathermen, the radical leftist organization responsible for a number of bombings of government buildings during the 1970s as well as breaking Timothy Leary out of jail. Featuring interviews with key members of the movement, it manages to stay objective while giving an inside look into the machinations of the violent side of the New Left that grew out of the protests of the Vietnam War.

When the internet was created, those involved most likely imagined a vast network where ideas could be shared across great expanses. Where great minds could come together to work on the most fundamental questions of human existence. Instead, here’s a video of Shelley Duvall, star of The Shining, introducing herself in almost the exact same way twenty four times. It is both maddening and hypnotic. Gaze upon its banal majesty and weep for what might have been.

(Also, let me just say, that this is, perhaps, the most terrifying thing one could hear upon entering a graveyard.)

The winner of 2010’s Tell It Your Way competition, sponsored by Philips. The contest’s rules were that the film could be no longer than three minutes and contain no more than six lines of dialog. Written, directed, and edited by Keegan Wilcox, Porcelain Unicorn tells the story of an encounter between two children in the midst of WWII.

Via Cynical-C

It is…so hot outside. Walking out the door means hitting a wall of brutal heat so dense with humidity that getting down the street requires movements more akin to swimming than walking. At least it’s Friday though, so…there is that. As such, it’s time for another edition of The Friday Afternoon Movie, the internet’s highest rated weekly movie feature, according to Consumer Reports. (Editor’s Note: No. It. Is. Not.)

Today The FAM presents 1997’s spectacular and, occasionally, cringe-worthy Trekkies. Directed by Roger Nygard, it is one of my favorite documentaries. Your mileage may vary depending on how interesting you find nerd culture and/or how personally you are invested in said culture. Some have criticized the film for poking fun at its subjects but I feel that Nygard remains objective throughout; and while, as previously mentioned, there are some awkward moments to be sure, I find it to be very endearing.

And that’s going to do it for The FAM. See you all here next week, so long as I can make it home without my brain boiling in my skull.

Friday! It is now! At this very moment! Time for the FAM! GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Today’s Friday Afternoon Movie is 1991’s Blood in the Face, directed by Anne Bohlen, Kevin Rafferty, and James Ridgeway, based upon Ridgeway’s book Blood in the Face: The Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, Nazi Skinheads, and the Rise of a New White Culture. You may assume from the title of that book that this film may be about white supremacists. You would assume correctly. Blood in the Face, filmed mostly in Cohoctah Township, Michigan, is an encounter with the ultra-right, lunatic fringe — at least as it existed 20 years ago.

What makes the movie work, I think, is how casual, for lack of a better word, the entire encounter is. The directors eschew the usual tropes associated with exposés and documentaries. There is no narrator, there are no experts being interviewed in order to provide commentary or context. By and large the filmmakers stay out of the actual film (with the exception of Michael Moore, who makes an appearance around 7:12 in part one, interviewing a uniformed neo-Nazi). The majority of the interviews are conversational in tone, giving the disturbing illusion of actually being amongst these people. Oftentimes it feels like it’s just you and a bunch of crazed racists; an uncomfortable experience, to say the least.

I got far too little sleep last night. For what reason, I do not know, but I was simply unable to get more than two or three hours of real rest and, as such, I am not all here at the moment. And while this is normally a bad thing, it does allow me to at least place the blame for this week’s FAM upon my delirium.

With that out of the way, allow me to present Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky from 1991, directed by Lam Nai-choi and starring Fan Siu-wong as the titular hero. Truthfully, that is all I would like to say about it, letting those who have not seen it just stumble in blindly but that would be, perhaps, irresponsible of me. So, as far as plot goes: The year is 2001 and all government institutions have been privatized. At the beginning of the film our hero, Riki-Oh Saiga, martial arts master, arrives at a prison to serve a ten year sentence for manslaughter, for killing the man indirectly responsible for the death of Riki’s girlfriend.

That’s all you get. However, I must warn viewers that the draw of this particular film (besides the amazing/bad dubbing) is, frankly, its outlandish violence. Saying The Story of Ricky contains some blood and gore is like saying Bill Gates has a few bucks. The movie is soaked through with gallons of fake blood. It is an orgy of ludicrous, cartoonish violence. If you aren’t down for watching a man punch the jaw off a laughably fake head, then don’t click the play button. If, however, that level of disgusting camp appeals to you, and you haven’t already seen this fine movie, then prepare yourself for an hour and a half of the most ridiculous martial arts mayhem ever recorded.

“Peter has a great range from comedy to drama. He could break your heart or he could make you laugh.” ~Director William Friedkin

To honor a handsomely disheveled, gruff-voiced and lovable actor who has passed away, here’s a beautiful scene from Wim Wender’s Wings of Desire:

Read more about how Falk came to play an ex-angel in the classic German romantic fantasy film here. (Via moonandserpent.)

Fenriz of Darkthrone. Still via Black Metal Movie.

[Video removed in response to copyright infringement complaint. Buy the film here.]

Screaming and corpse paint on this entry of The FAM as we take a look at Until the Light Takes Us, the 2009 documentary directed by Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell which details the goings on of a small group of individuals who took the Norwegian black metal scene and propelled it into infamy with vandalism, church burnings, and, eventually, murder. It specifically sets its sights on two of the individuals: Darkthrone drummer and producer Gylve “Fenriz” Nagell and ex Mayhem member and one man band Burzum creator Varg “Count Grishnackh” Vikernes who, at the time, was finishing out a 21 year sentence (the maximum under Norwegian law) for four of the aforementioned church burnings, as well as the murder of fellow Mayhem band-mate Øystein “Euronymous” Aarseth.

The reasons for this decision are apparent from the start, as they are almost diametrically opposed to one another. Nagell continues to remain active in the scene, making music with Darkthrone and running his record label. He is also, seemingly, apolitical. Vikernes, on the other hand, is anything but. He waxes at great length about the ills his country and culture have suffered under the tyranny of everything from McDonald’s to Christianity. Indeed, of the two, he is far more charismatic. He is also the most problematic.

Critics have pointed out that Vikernes may have charmed his interviewers into complacency, and I can’t help but agree. Little is done to expand his views of Christianity, and yet it seems that most of those issues revolve around the fact that it is an offshoot of Judaism. It is also not mentioned that, for a number of years after his conviction, he identified as a neo-Nazi. (He has since created the term “odalism” to differentiate his beliefs, though those differences do not pertain to either racism or anti-Semitism.)

In a sense, then, Until the Light Takes Us serves much better as a history lesson, a snapshot of the early days of Norway’s burgeoning black metal scene. It serves little in the way of critique save to ponder how society has co-opted the scene, rendering it somewhat toothless in the eyes of its forefathers; and while this is an interesting diversion it is more observation than analysis. In the end, it could have used a more insightful vision. Aites and Ewell spent two years in Norway making this documentary and getting to know their subjects. It may have helped to get some distance.