Some movies are so terrifying they linger in your mind for days. Others are so incompetent they linger in your DVD player because you fell asleep halfway through and forgot to hit eject. Confessions of a Serial Killer is firmly the latter—a dreary, plodding 1985 horror flick that proves the scariest thing about it is how much free time the director assumed his audience had.
Billed as a chilling account inspired by the confessions of Henry Lee Lucas, the film instead plays like an extended police training video: “How Not to Make a Serial Killer Movie.” Confessions beat Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer to the punch by one year, but it feels less like a trailblazer and more like the VHS demo tape left behind at the crime scene.
The Plot: A Marathon of Monotony
The story follows Daniel Ray Hawkins (Robert A. Burns), a greasy, mumbling man arrested for his crimes who promptly spills the beans on murdering over 200 women. That should be horrifying, but instead it’s like watching a man read off his grocery list with occasional flashbacks to dimly lit violence. “Eggs, milk, bread, hitchhiker strangulation, orange juice.”
We’re treated to endless confessions, punctuated with flashbacks so flat they look like discarded Unsolved Mysteriesreenactments. Daniel tells us about his childhood abuse, how he ran away, and how he met his sidekicks Moon and Molly, two names that sound more like circus clowns than accomplices to mass murder. Together, they embark on a spree of dull killings so repetitive they make you nostalgic for the character development of Friday the 13th Part V.
The sheriff, Will Gaines (Berkley Garrett), doesn’t believe Daniel at first—which is ironic, since we don’t either. Not because it’s too shocking, but because the movie is so unconvincing you start wondering if Daniel’s actually confessing to stealing lunches in the office fridge instead of racking up a murder count that rivals small wars.
Acting: Confession Without Conviction
Robert A. Burns plays Daniel Ray Hawkins like a man who just remembered he left the stove on. He’s got the greasy hair, the thousand-yard stare, and the voice of someone who overdosed on cough syrup. Instead of menace, we get monotone. Instead of terror, we get tedium.
Dennis Hill as Moon is supposed to be Daniel’s unhinged partner-in-crime, but he has the charisma of a broken lawn chair. Sidney Brammer as Molly does little more than smoke cigarettes, look bored, and occasionally stab people like she’s checking it off a to-do list. Together, the trio don’t radiate evil—they radiate apathy.
Berkley Garrett as Sheriff Gaines delivers his lines like a man who wandered in from a regional theater production of Matlock: The Musical. He’s not intimidating, he’s not sympathetic—he’s just… there, collecting a paycheck that probably covered lunch at Dairy Queen.
Direction: Crime Scene Tape Over the Lens
Director Mark Blair deserves credit for one thing: consistency. Every shot looks equally bad. The cinematography is washed out, the lighting is dim but not in an atmospheric way—more in a “did someone forget to pay the electric bill?” way.
The pacing is glacial. Scenes drag on so long you start to suspect the editor took a nap mid-cut. Tension is nonexistent. Murders happen in the same flat, matter-of-fact style every time, like watching someone fold laundry. Stab, strangle, dump the body. Repeat. The movie seems determined to strip all horror of horror.
Blair clearly wanted gritty realism, but what we get is less “gritty” and more “gravelly.” It’s ugly, sure, but not in a way that unsettles—just in a way that makes you wonder if your VHS tracking is broken.
The Horror: Confessions of a Snoozefest
The idea of adapting Henry Lee Lucas’s confessions into a film could have been disturbing, fascinating, maybe even groundbreaking. Instead, Confessions of a Serial Killer settles for a lukewarm series of murders staged with about as much tension as a car wash.
Blood? Minimal. Gore? Practically none. Suspense? Ha! The movie has the emotional intensity of a half-empty can of Spam. Even when women are being attacked, it feels staged, fake, lifeless—like the actors are silently praying they’ll be released from the set before sundown.
The only shocking part of the movie is realizing it got a theatrical release at all.
The “Realism” Problem
Where Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer would later succeed by diving into the banality of evil, Confessions just wallows in banality. There’s no psychological insight, no exploration of the mind of a killer, just endless droning confessions and half-hearted flashbacks.
The movie wants you to believe in Daniel’s monstrosity, but the actor never sells it, and the script never earns it. He’s less terrifying than he is tiresome. Imagine Charles Manson trying to terrify you by reading the phone book, and you’ll get the idea.
A Cult Classic… of All the Wrong People
Some folks call Confessions of a Serial Killer a cult film, but only because bad movies always find a few masochists to champion them. Maybe it’s because Robert A. Burns was also the art director on The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and horror completists want to see what else he touched. Spoiler: it’s not much.
There’s no edge here, no bite, no nightmare fuel. Just an endless loop of talking, stabbing, and more talking. If this is what confession looks like, no wonder churches keep the booths dark—you’d fall asleep otherwise.
Final Thoughts: Death by Boredom
Confessions of a Serial Killer is a horror movie in theory, a nap in practice. It takes one of the most notorious true crime stories of the 20th century and reduces it to a beige blur of bad acting, worse pacing, and non-existent scares.
Yes, it came before Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. But being “first” isn’t the same as being “good.” This is the cinematic equivalent of a historical marker on the side of a highway: interesting for two seconds, then forgotten as you drive away.
If you want to see the story of Henry Lee Lucas on screen, wait a year and watch Henry. If you want to see Robert A. Burns stare into the middle distance while mumbling confessions like a drunk man in a bus station, then by all means, pop in Confessions of a Serial Killer.
Just don’t expect thrills, chills, or even competence. Expect boredom. Lots and lots of boredom.
Because the only thing this movie murders is your free time.
