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

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.

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.

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.

Imagine you wanted to do an exploitation documentary about a character that has been mostly ignored by history.

Most people know very little about H. H. Holmes, the serial killer. So you google the guy, put together about ten pages of notes, and then do a walk-through of the mansion, using whatever photos are on file.

You get a documentary that goes like this: "Here is bedroom #4, where several women may have been murdered." Then you do the same for the rest of the house, and soon you have a one hour documentary that has very little real documentation of anything, and no information that is new or interesting.

You can google everything that is in this documentary in ten minutes or less, and save yourself 64 minutes of boring narration. There are no credible sources used, no orignal investigation records/documents from the FBI or any other Law Enforcement Agency, just information that was googled and cobbled together into a very bogus documentary.

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.