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

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.

Being a bit of a "true crime" buff, it's always nice to see a documentary that is well researched and contains all the most important elements of a true story. That appears to be the case in this well-made documentary film about late 1800's serial-killer HH Holmes. Writer/Director John Borowski pulls this story out of the basement and reintroduces it to the world in this engrossing documentary. You've heard the names Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and John Wayne Gacy, but have you heard the name HH Holmes? Maybe not. His crimes took place during the late 1800's and have been overshadowed by the gruesome misadventure of more recent killers. However, those of you that are interested in the whole "true crime" thing might be intrigued to learn of Holmes' horrific crimes and how they share similarities in some aspects with modern killers such as Bundy, Dahmer, and other notorious bad boys. A Must See for true crime buffs!

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.

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.

Fascinating, fast-moving chronological account of Holmes' grisly murder career from early years to final reckoning. The narrative's a mix of vintage photographs, drawings, location shots, and filmic recreations; along with voice-over narration and biographical commentary. Together, they both astonish and entertain. My one negative are those instances when it would be good to know if the shots were authentic or recreated. And get a load of his 'castle of horrors' outfitted with torture devices and disposal vats aplenty-- death chambers unequaled by even the scariest horror flicks.

Anyway, Holmes appears an unusual serial killer, at least in my little book. His pleasure in killing appears to not so much with a laying of hands on his victims, ala' Jack The Ripper, but rather with death itself. That may be the result of a psychopathy embedded in his training with cadavers. Then too, he was also something of an entrepreneur and swindler as the narrative makes clear. No doubt, his pleasant, unthreatening demeanor helped secure these schizophenic designs.

I like that the flick includes his own ruminations on a murderously grisly life as he awaits the gallows. Though his confessions alter, probably according to mood, I suspect the claim that he was born with Satan at his side is close to the truth as he sees it. That way he's absolved of guilt. But what a horror his life is. So I wouldn't recommend watching the grotesqueries before dinner or before bed. Still, his tale remains a part of our bleakest annals of crime.