H.H. Holmes: America's First Serial Killer

Fascinating, fast-moving chronological account of Holmes' grisly murder career from early years to final reckoning. The narrative's a mix of vintage photographs, drawings, location shots, and filmic recreations; along with voice-over narration and biographical commentary. Together, they both astonish and entertain. My one negative are those instances when it would be good to know if the shots were authentic or recreated. And get a load of his 'castle of horrors' outfitted with torture devices and disposal vats aplenty-- death chambers unequaled by even the scariest horror flicks.

Anyway, Holmes appears an unusual serial killer, at least in my little book. His pleasure in killing appears to not so much with a laying of hands on his victims, ala' Jack The Ripper, but rather with death itself. That may be the result of a psychopathy embedded in his training with cadavers. Then too, he was also something of an entrepreneur and swindler as the narrative makes clear. No doubt, his pleasant, unthreatening demeanor helped secure these schizophenic designs.

I like that the flick includes his own ruminations on a murderously grisly life as he awaits the gallows. Though his confessions alter, probably according to mood, I suspect the claim that he was born with Satan at his side is close to the truth as he sees it. That way he's absolved of guilt. But what a horror his life is. So I wouldn't recommend watching the grotesqueries before dinner or before bed. Still, his tale remains a part of our bleakest annals of crime.