Henry II: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1996)

Henry II: Portrait of a Serial Killer: Directed by Chuck Parello. With Penelope Milford, Neil Giuntoli, Mike Houlihan, James Otis. Henry II picks up where the original (Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer) left off. Henry (Neil Giuntoli) takes a thankless job at a port-o-john company where he meets husband and wife, Kai (Ken Komenich) and Cricket (Kate Walsh). They take pity on the homeless drifter and offer him a room in the home they share with their emotionally fragile teenage niece, Louisa (Carri Levinson). Henry learns that Kai has a side job as an arsonist-for-hire, setting up phony insurance scams to make money for their boss, Rooter (Daniel Allar). He agrees to join Kai and on one of their first outings, they discover two squatters in a building that’s been marked for fire. It is then that Henry introduces Kai to his life’s work… and the murders begin. Kai has never killed before, but he turns into a willing accomplice. Initially, the two men work well together. But as the killing sprees increase in their depravity, it’s more than Kai can handle. He wants out, but he’s in too deep.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Different director, and a different Henry, even. Not quite what I had in mind, either. Perhaps a bit insulting, if youu0026#39;re like me, and you think highly of Henry 1, that is, unless youu0026#39;re, once again, like me and have extremely low standards for Horror, and are used to that sort of inconvinence, because there sure is whole lot of it. So, as far as half-ass sequels with different directors, and an all together different feel goes, this one is actually pretty good. Good, but not awesome, at least not compared to the original, which. by the way, is a masterpiece, but letu0026#39;s try not to hold that against Chuck Parellou0026#39;s underdog of a sequel. Henry 2 picks up some time after the events of the original. Henry is broke, desperate, and completely out of his mind. Henry ends up with a job cleaning porta-potties, and soon gets friendly with a co-worker and his wife (Kai and Cricket), resulting in a place to crash for a few days. Polite at first, Henry makes himself right at home after discovering Kaiu0026#39;s hobbie… firebug. Naturally, Henry wants to play, and soon Henry introduces Kai to his own games, quickly turning this regular joe firebug into a bloodthirsty killer. But as we all know, Henry is only capable of playing well with others for so long.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI take it we werenu0026#39;t supposed to notice that the new Henry is about a foot shorter than Michael Rooker. In that case, forget I said anything. Henry 2 Mask Of Sanity is a much better stand-alone movie than one may think, and also has a lot going for it in the violence and terror department, despite being in the shadow of Henry one. for those who can really appreciate a quality sequel, Troll 2 is waiting. And as for Henry 2, this may sound strange, but this movie really is a worthy sequel. 7/10”