Drifter: Henry Lee Lucas

Pretty one sided. Probably right from Lucas's mouth. Excuses for murdering. Some of the murder scenes are pretty poorly done! But if you have time to waste...go ahead and watch it. Good for a laugh.

Serial killer movies have become two a penny, it feels like at least a couple come out each year. This one, directed by Michael Feifer, just feels like old hat, like it is treading water to make a point that has been made a hundred times before. It doesn't help that Henry Lee Lucas has already been covered in brilliantly grainy fashion previously with John McNaughton's 1990 skin itcher Henry: Portrait OF A Serial Killer, which quite frankly is superior to this in every department. On the plus side are the performances of Antonio Sabato Jr. (Henry) and Kostas Sommer (Ottis), where the former is broody and twitchy, the latter hyper insane, but ultimately it achieves nothing. Kudos, however, is due for at least cleaving close to what facts of the case are known to be true. 4/10

Not a perfect movie by any means...but well worth a look if you have even a passing interest in the murderous exploits of Henry Lee Lucas.

In response to Ted's 'review'...if it could be called that, please don't identify yourself as Australian again. I too am Australian and your childish observations give us all a bad name. And claiming that your location means you couldn't possibly have heard of Henry Lee Lucas is embarrassing...you have a computer...have you ever tried to use it for researching something and perhaps adding to your limited knowledge of the world? Sure you may not have enjoyed the film you 'reviewed', but you base your opinions on the fact you felt the film was 'horrible'. How enlightening for us all! You should stick to films in your age bracket and leave the reviewing to us adults in future who actually have some knowledge of the medium and who are able to construct a sentence that is coherent.

HENRY LEE LUCAS: SERIAL KILLER is a modern B-movie retelling of the life of the infamous killer, originally played (to the hilt) by Michael Rooker in the unforgettable '80s movie HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A KILLER. Of course, this isn't on a par with that movie, but at least it does something entirely different. While the Rooker flick provided a realistic, slice-of-life portrayal of the killer at the peak of his infamous crimes, HENRY LEE LUCAS: SERIAL KILLER is a biopic told via annoying flashbacks (and forwards) that covers his entire life.

First off, the most surprising thing about this film is that Antonio Sabato Jr. (CRASH LANDING), a notable B-movie actor, actually gives a fine performance in the titular role. He plays Lucas as a hulking, scarred brute, who seems permanently stoned and given to unpredictable violence. At the same time he's charismatic to boot and certainly Sabato's performance outshines everyone else in the production.

For a low budget film, the production values for this are pretty decent, and I particularly enjoyed the exploration of Henry's childhood which sows the seeds for his latter day crimes. The best thing about the movie is that it doesn't dwell on the brutality of the crimes; the temptation for modern film-makers would surely be to sicken the viewer at every opportunity but this is surprisingly restrained, giving the production a mature feel as a whole.

This movie is not a classical low budget blunder trying to cash in on the fact that it's about serial killer. Granted, the budget was small, but that did not made a big impact on the movie. Script is well written, and constructed. Realistically portraying the torture in his childhood years, that later on led to his twisted personality, movie is not afraid to make a bit longer scenes, just to make you a bit more uncomfortable.

Henry Lee Lucas was a serial killer that, imprisoned, confessed to over 600 murders. Truth is that we really do not know how many victims he killed, due to his false confessions that were rewarded by the police by better treatment.

Overall, do not expect a masterpiece, or some innovative and strange things in it, but more of familiar style of directing with the focus on the story. If you want to go further than that, you can start analyzing events in his childhood and their impact on his killing urges. Was it all his fault, or were there other culprits?

Movie did manage to stick to the actual story of Henry, so it's not all dramatization and imagined events, like some of the recent movies. They slap a "based on a true events" sticker on it, and hope that it will sell better. This is not the case here.