Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1990) and Rubber (2010)

“Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer” and “Rubber” are two miniscule-budgeted films about serial killers that couldn’t be more different, or more outside the mainstream Hollywood horror genre of overly hip and witty masked killers. The former is a disturbing minor masterpiece that’s unshakable; the latter, a pop blast of avant-garde cinema that made me think Andy Warhol and David Lynch.

Made in 1986, unreleased until 1990, the $100,000 “Henry” stars a young Michael Rooker as a soulless serial killer roaming Chicago. His housemate is a seedy bisexual redneck (Tom Towles) with a much younger sister (Tracy Arnold) with a checkered, troubled past. The trio all go horribly, terribly wrong, and director/writer John McNoughton not only doesn’t flinch from some of the most gruesome violence ever put to film, he dives in head first. The shock of the slide toward the bloody end is purposeful. Should not all horror films hit this way? How does this compare to, say, “Saw” or “Friday the 13th” where slaughter is treated as a joke. The acting is rough, bad rough, and the dialogue unnaturally natural, but, damn, it’s a difficult sight to shake. B+

“Rubber” is all satire. It opens with an actor cracking the fourth wall and telling us, the audience, what we are about to watch is fully ridiculous. But, he asks, what movie isn’t? From there we follow two stories: A mass-murdering tire rises from the ground and stalks the American West, crushing bottles and cans before moving onto birds and rabbits, and then … people; the second track is an onscreen audience watching the tire kill, each member of this chorus a stereotypical movie fan. Director/writer Quentin Dupieux takes a stab at the horror genre, even his own film as his audience yawns and dubs it “boring.” Crazy thing: The guy makes you care about this tire. Not care, but take an avid crazed interest in its every roll. “Rubber” is fascinating, perplexing, weird and damn funny. At 85 minutes it’s too long, but it opens a sequel that would terrify a preschooler. B