 The original Henry:
Portrait of a Serial Killer may not have been
the last word in serial killer films, but it was certainly
the last word on it’s main character. What more could
be said about Henry? If Henry: Portrait of a Serial
Killer 2 is
any indication, then the answer is a resounding nothing. Henry
2, like most horror sequels of the '80s and '90s,
is an utterly pointless attempt to cash in on the notoriety
of its progenitor. Just imagine the original stripped of
all its interesting moments and you’ll pretty
much have Henry 2. Writer-Director Chuck
Parello doesn’t seem comfortable with the free-floating
nature of the original’s narrative, so there’s
a half-assed attempt to create a slightly more traditional
storyline. The result is an unfocused, shallow mess.
Some time after the original, Henry is up to his old tricks
again. Henry 2 apes the opening tableaux
montage from the original, though it’s handled far less
effectively. This is where Henry 2 makes
its first mistake: it never establishes a context. Is it twenty
minutes after the original ends? A year? Ten years? Who knows?
After a few minutes of Henry slumming in dive bars and men’s
shelters, Henry finds work at a porta-john company where he
meets his new partner in crime Kai (Rich Komenich) and his
wife Cricket (Kate Walsh). They unwisely offer a Henry a place
to stay while he gets back on his feet. Turns out that won’t
take long. Kai, you see, is into arson for pay and soon cuts
Henry in on the action. There’s some mildly original
back and forth as Kai tutors Henry in the finer points of
arson, while Henry teaches Kai to be a ruthless killer. No
points for guessing that Henry’s newfound arson skills
will pay off before the movie is over in a most unironic ironic
ending.
 Henry 2’s
single biggest liability is the absence of Michael Rooker.
His performance as Henry in the first film was a highlight
of '80s cinema. After Henry broke, he went on to do bit parts
and supporting roles in big budget films. He was probably
too busy playing Zeedo Zedkov in The Replacement Killers to
reprise his role in this sequel, so someone was needed to
fill his shoes. Unfortunately for us his replacement, Neil
Giuntoli, is simply not up to the task. He was probably cast
more for his superficial facial resemblance to Michael Rooker
than his acting abilities. He is unable to portray
Henry’s internal conflict the way Rooker could. Giuntoli’s
Henry seems stoned rather than insane and is more apt to
push you down than kill you (I guess Henry: Portrait of
a Serial Pusher didn’t have much commercial viability).
Giuntoli also lacks Rooker’s physical presence; in this
latest incarnation, Henry has a beer gut. That’s right:
Henry’s a stoner with a terminal case of the munchies.
To be fair the screenplay really doesn’t give Giuntoli
much to work with, but he isn’t able to transcend his
material.
 In a weak attempt to distinguish itself from its predecessor, Henry
2 features two female characters instead of one.
In addition to Kai’s wife is Louisa (Carri Levinon),
her emotionally unstable niece who also lives with them.
You know how we can tell she’s emotionally unstable?
Why, because she dresses like she’s Amish and wears
big glasses, of course. She draws pictures of people on meat
hooks and is an art instructor, teaching kids to draw pictures
of people on meat hooks, I guess. This character is shoehorned
into the dynamic of the first film in a very transparent
attempt to recreate the Henry-Becky relationship of the first
film, but because Parello is unable to find and maintain
the right tone for their scenes together, it falls completely
flat. In the original, Becky looked to Henry as a protector
from the incestuous designs of her brother. This time around
there is simply no believable motivation for Louisa to fall
in love with Henry. It’s not a convincing relationship
to say the least, consisting mainly of her clumsy advances
and Henry’s rebuffs. We’re never made to care
about her; the best I was able to muster was mild embarrassment
for both the character and actress. Apparently writer Parello
didn’t care much either, since she’s given a
ludicrous suicide scene after which the rest of characters
get on with their life and, with the exception of one short
scene, never even acknowledge her existence (though her corpse
must’ve hung around the house for a day or two so it
could be present for the finale). Call me crazy but if someone
were to blow her brains out right in front of me, I might
mention it afterwards.
 Cricket serves no purpose in the story other than to make
Louisa jealous. She’s pretty much just the prototypical
catty white trash wife you’ve seen a thousand times
already. We never learn much about her like why she stays
with a man even she considers a loser. Had the relationship
between Cricket and Louisa been explored there was an opportunity
to make Cricket a tragic, working-class heroine. The best
thing I can probably say about her is that her character makes
far more of an impression then her husband Kai. Kai was probably
intended to be a counterpoint to Henry like Ottis was in the
original film. He’s nowhere near as memorable a character,
unfortunately. Kai seems culled from the Hollywood stereotype
repository and can be seen in other films as “schlubby
blue collar loser #6”. Unbelievably, Parello wants us
to identify and sympathize with Kai. It says a lot about the
moral center of the film when an amoral arsonist is it’s
most compassionate character.
 Parello tries very hard to retain the feel of the first
film. Instead of the elegant classic of the original, however,
we get a clumsy imitation that’s not artful enough to
be great, nor sleazy enough to be great fun. Henry
2 is actually best described as boring. It has nothing
to offer us: no new character revelations or even character
moments on par with the original, no suspense, no scares,
nothing to truly move or disturb us. Nothing happens for most
of its running time, and when something does happen it’s
not exciting, interesting or insightful. There’s not
even much in the way of gore and nudity. It’s like the
director and cast can’t even muster enough energy to
give us even the most superficial reason to keep watching.
The tacky, TV-movie style scene fadeouts just underscore the
lameness and ineptitude of the entire project. Henry
2 isn’t scary, suspenseful, gory, funny, sexy
or any other positive adjective you could think of to describe
a movie.
To its credit, Henry 2 is made with a minimal
amount of technical polish that does save it from being the
worst film ever.
High praise, indeed.
 Presentation
Whatever
problems I have with the film, I can’t fault
Dark Sky Film’s presentation of it on DVD. Please don’t
mistake that as an endorsement: this is a pretty shitty transfer.
I just don’t fault Dark Sky for not putting more effort
into it. I sure as hell wouldn’t if it were up to me.
The picture is soft and washed out. There is very little
fine detail. Black levels are decent, though inconsistent
and colors are muted. There are also a lot of compression
issues. Based on this transfer, I thought Henry 2 was shot
on video; I was shocked to read on the IMDB that it was filmed
on 35mm.
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer 2 has
2.0 and 5.1 audio tracks. Dialogue is occasionally hollow
sounding but generally clear. I detected very little difference
between the 2.0 track and the 5.1 track; the 5.1 track moves
some music to the surrounds and centers the dialogue in the
middle channel, but I had put my ears right up to the speakers
to be able to tell. Whatever.
Extras
Dark Sky has a good track record of putting together
extensive supplement packages and, while not as feature-packed
as the original Henry’s 2-disc, there’s
still a surprising amount of supplemental material provided.
Unfortunately there’s more quantity than quality on
display here.
First up, we have a full-length audio commentary with Writer-Director
Chuck Parello.
An Open Letter to Chuck Parello
Dear Mr. Parello,
Please don’t ever speak again.
Thank you in Advance,
Humanity
Chuck Parello is the most vapid and inane commentator I
have ever had the displeasure of listening to. He offers no
insight into the characters or filmmaking process and offers
no perspective on the film at all. Despite heavy prodding
from the moderator (the fact that there’s a moderator
on a one-person commentary should probably be a red flag),
his infrequent comments are mostly just describing the on
screen action, praising the film itself or describing the
work of the low rent actors as “perfect”. He doesn’t
even crack a halfway decent joke or have the self-deprecating
sense of humor required to make a commentary about a dud like Henry
2 tolerable.
 The featurette H2: The Making of a Madman is your
basic talking heads fluff piece. The two male leads talk about
their parts very briefly, the director provides some platitudes
about how gritty and raw the film is and we’re to treated
to some short and not very interesting behind the scenes footage. Making
of a Madman runs approximately 14 minutes better spent
doing something else. Hey, I watch this shit so you don’t
have to.
There’s a collection of deleted scenes running an
aggregate 29 minutes. Most are just extensions of existing
scenes. It’s not hard to see why they were deleted although
some of them provide directions the sequel could have taken
that might’ve been more interesting than the final product.
Rounding out the supplement section are trailers for both
Henry 1 & 2 and a still gallery of production photos,
publicity stills and frames from the movie.
Final Thoughts
While I’m reasonably sure that this is not going to
be the worst movie you’ve ever seen, with so many other
great movies out there I can’t imagine anybody willingly
wasting their time with this. I guess if you’re a serial
killer film completionist, a fan of the oeuvre of Chuck Parello
or determined to punish yourself then maybe you’ll want
to check this out. Otherwise, I’d advise you to pass
on it. In fact, if you do buy this after reading my review,
I’m coming over to your house and kicking you in the
junk hard enough to make sure you’re never able to reproduce.
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