Last year, between the two of us, we watched an average of 317 movies.
This year our goal is to top that by watching at least one a day.
And as an extra special torture, we've decided to write about all of them.

08 March 2008

H. H. Holmes - America's First Serial Killer, dir. John Borowski (2004)

NIKKI says:
So, I just found out The Devil in the White City is to be a film. Great news -- it's a magnificent book, contrasting H.H. Holmes' murders with Daniel Burnham's building of the Chicago Worlds Fair. I don't think I've ever read a book that's beguiled me quite so much.

If you've read that book, though, America's First Serial Killer will reveal very little about Holmes and his exploits. It's rather short, and really just a rundown of events with brief talking heads from a criminal profiler, an investigations expert, and Harold Schechter, author of a book on Holmes.

What's kinda cool and perhaps slightly revelatory is the film's soundtrack, which overlays the sounds of Gilded Age Chicago with old-timey shots of the city at the time Holmes built his horror castle.

Otherwise, it's really all just photographs of people involved in the case pasted different ways against different backdrops to give the impression of movement. So, it wasn't the most gripping of films. Still, there's much to be learned about the chronology of the case, and bits and pieces after the event, such as the transcriptions of Holmes' letters and journals written throughout his incarceration.

As stated, not too revealing if you know about Holmes, but not a bad way to revisit those events. Even if they are so horribly shocking.

2.5/5