Customer Reviews

Drifter: Henry Lee Lucas

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Watched this movie last night and thought it was okay. Not much gore, not as violent as I imagined it might be. In both Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, and this rendition, I was disappointed that the writers pandered to the mainstream and left out the glaring fact that Ottis was homosexual and Henry & him were "lovers" of sorts in the true story.

I've seen almost all the movies about serial killers including the very disturbing Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Drifter is pure fluff, made for TV crap! Just look at the cast of pretty people including and starring ex-soap opera star Antonio Sabato, Jr. This movie is not scary, gorey or dark like most serial killer movies should be; it's just plain cheesy and lame. I would give it zero stars but I don't think that's possible. Be warned.

There were so many flaws in Drifter: Henry Lee Lucas, I don't know where to start ...

TV Movie of the Week quality.

Numerous gaffes.

Twice, one of the actors looked at the camera. In any real movie, the editor/director would have re-shot the scene.

When the dead hitchhiker is getting raped on the couch, you can see the camerman's shadow.

Henry's scar on his eye keeps changing between scenes.

When the doctor is preparing to give Henry shock treatment, he has the nurse take out Henry's glass eye. While he's shocking Henry and questioning him afterward, it is obvious that the eye is still in place, the actor is just looking upward to make it more ominous.

The actors' "accents" were too funny. I'm guessing the director told them to "talk real slow, cuz that's how dumb people talk."

Overall, fairly laughable. Unfortunately, not funny enough to be a cult classic.

I will openly admit I watch too many of both the cheesy fake horror movies (Friday the 13th, etc) and these "based on real life" horror movies. But on occasion you can find a decent small film amongst them ("THE GRAY MAN" about Albert Fish was pretty decent) and it isn't as if the glut of high profile, big budget films have had much to offer recently. I guess from the cover and the casting of Antonio Sabato Jr as Henry I should've realized right away how bad this would be, but sometimes that can be funny. Might have been funny had they not been so studiously serious about it.

So Sabato Jr is not only too good looking (despite sad attempts to make him deformed), he's just not convincing as a liar/killer etc. But then again nobody else is either. Everyone is bad in this movie and the dialogue is so poorly written. The accents are laughable. Some of the footage looks like it was shot on someone's personal video and not in a deliberate "BLAIR WITCH" kind of way, more in a look at my family's attempt to be funny home video way.

Anyway, as I had already paid for the rental I went ahead and sat through it, but it required a Chimay Belgium Beer for me to do so. Anyway, beer was good. Movie was bad. Save yourself some time and rent/buy something else, anything else.

But if you really want to see a real life serial killer movie these would be my suggestions:
THE GRAY MAN - about Albert Fish was disturbing, though not gory from slasher movie perspective, it was well performed and written. and the guy that plays Albert Fish looks like him (a bit better looking and taller, but the resemblance is there).

Of the Bundy film library, for me, it will always be Mark Harmon who best portrayed him in "THE DELIBERATE STRANGER" but Ann Rule's "The STRANGER BESIDE ME" and Billy Campbell are pretty good (the book is better).

And the grand daddy of real life murder movies (though not serial killer), "HELTER SKELTER" (1976) - The original is my personal choice (the remake is okay). The book is dryer, but a great book. The film is good and the actor that plays him really is disturbingly like Manson in his portrayal.

There are also some larger scale productions that are pretty good: THE ZODIAC, PSYCHO (1960 - very loosely based on Ed Gein), and MONSTER(Aileen Wuornos).

But this movie is badly made and honestly pretty boring. I understand HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A KILLER is better.

This truncated look at infamous serial killer suffers on many levels. Casting underwear hunk Antonio Sabato as the titular character is one of filmdom's most ridiculous miscastings ever, as is German actor Kostas Sommeras his psycho sidekick Ottis. In actuality, they were both un-handsome males.
The movie moves too slowly and its production values unremarkable. Michael Rooker's PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER did it much better years before. While it has some disturbing moments, DRIFTER is ultimately a dud.

While nowhere near as good as the fictionalized Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, this film is much, much more based on fact than the other film. Sobato playing Lucas is excellent, i originally thought he would not be up to it, boy was i wrong, this guy really committed to the role, even mimicking Henry's backwoods speech pattern & he even looks just like Henry after his capture, Kostas playing Otis Toole was great also, Otis was a real sick-o & Kostas does him justice. The film is really low budget, which is it's main downfall, though director Mike Fiefer has done a few of these killer flicks & he more than makes up for it. The kills are not that graphic or gory. Overall, fairly good killer film, really nice to finally see a "true" re-telling of the Henry and Otis story.

I purchased this movie after having researched these two killers and was impressed at the accuracy in which Henry Lee Lucas at least was portrayed. The movie itself was not gory but does get the point across as to how vicious and sadistic these two psycos were. Totally callous to their victims and very brutal in their rapes. These men were definetely better off dead which they both are now. Ottis Toole died in prison in 1998 and Lucas in 2001. This movie will show you how the mind of a true psycopath works.

This film really shows the true nature of Henry Lucas and his pathological lying to the press and police. Sabato's performance is very disturbing and possibly one of his best. This film won best director, actor and actress at the Beverly Hills Film Festival Awards and is well worth the view.

could have put a more work into it,
thought one of the reporters was pretty.

it was worse !

ill give sabato jr credit for trying a new role but he was miserable as was everyone else. i guess the wardrobe person did an ok job. no need to go into a speil about the story. its about henry lee lucas, infamous ''serial'' killer. sabatos future is now this generations lorenzo lamas. when will i stop giving into movies about real life maniacs ?!?!?!?!