The reason I chose to research this film is because it fits in the genre that we want to product our product in. It is a crime/thriller and a little psychological which is what our short Horror film fits in to. The movie is based on a real life serial killer - Henry Lee Lucas who recently got out of jail from killing his mother and now he has gone on a killing spree.This is an 18 age rated movie directed by John McNaughton, released in 1986. The Box Office budget was estimated $111,000 but the gross was $609,939, which shows that the movie was clearly successful.
One screening took place on the 27th February when the BBFC's presidents and vice presidents viewed the cut version of the film. James Ferman said that the film was 'disturbing but no exploitative in this cut form' that the BBFC had made. This meant that the movie had to have further cuts and reduction. The film was screened again almost a month later with 2 psychiatrists and 1 psychologist to make sure that the film didn't influence dangerous actions. This links to the hypodermic needle theory as people would be injected with thoughts of committing dangerous actions eve for 'fun' when in reality it would be a crime and mentally unstable for them. A real life case study would be o the 2 killers of Jamie Bulgar who watched a Child's Play movie and committed a copycat crime as they copied what had happened in the film and murdered the toddler. After their decision on the final cut version of Henry..., it was decided to be released as an 18 rated film in 1991.
The rating fits with the BBFC criteria as there are explicit scenes of the killer killing the prostitutes and scenes which construct his identity in order to make the narrative flow.
The movie was originally uncut but caused controversy when the BBFC decided not to show it without being cut. They struggled to cut the movie because most parts led up to the big climax of the movie, and if those scenes were cut then the movie wouldn't make sense, and the audience wouldn't know how it got to the big scene in the first place.
When they did make the cuts it was then taken to the examiners whom thought that the cuts made were insufficient.
The run time of this movie was originally 83 minutes but was cut down to 75 minutes because it was being aired on television.
John McNaughton, the creator of this movie says "we as filmmakers entertain you with violence". This links to the uses and gratifications theory as he created the movie for people to be entertained and for escapism. He doesn't intend to hypodermically inject evil thoughts into the audience but only to entertain them. This links with Richard Dyer and he says that 'genres are pleasurable because they offer escapist fantasies into fictional worlds that remove the boredom of reality'.
The BBFC regulations had not changed but by 2003 they re-assessed the film and found that there were more brutal and sexually violent scenes and had to have further cuts, but by 2003 they re-released an 18 uncut version.
The reason why this movie relates to our intended product is because in reality, the real Henry Lee Lucas did have a bad childhood when he was growing up, and so did our main character. Our main character was bullied as a child up until her current age, and mentally she's suffering so she's had enough and decided to act upon it.
Website used: http://www.bbfc.co.uk/case-studies/henry-portrait-serial-killer
http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2003/04/15/henry_portrait_of_a_serial_killer_2003_review.shtml
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099763/
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