Why was he evil?
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fallen_anakin — 15 years ago(March 27, 2011 01:29 PM)
I watched the end of the remake of The Hitcher a few days ago. And you know I could picture Henry growing up to be like that guy. The cop was asking him why he did all that stuff and he was like "well why not do it"? He was cruel and murdered just because he enjoyed it and that was how Henry was. He loved being cruel to animals and wanted his siblings out of the way(even though the parents loved all equally as far as we know) just because he didn't want to share anything with them. And even though I believe he had no true love for his mom and dad I think basically he would not have tried to kill his mom off so early were it not for the fact that she was on to him. Its not that he would have liked to keep her alive because he cared about her but she just was not on his immediate priority to get out of the way. I believe that if Mark had not come to visit Connie would have eventually been murdered soon and(assuming neither parent caught on to him) the parents much later as an adult when it came time for him to inherit the family's wealth. As a kid he still needed his parents for many functional things.
The scary clown doll is hiding under my bed. -
fallen_anakin — 14 years ago(June 23, 2011 08:27 PM)
Exactly because it kind of means that there is no way to help him. There are children who are mean and disturbed because of abuse and traumatic events. But if they are reached young enough and get proper love and therapy they can change and be normal. On a talk show(maybe it was Oprah I don't know) there was an update of a little boy who had been on the show several years earlier. I actually don't know if the boy had been abused but he acted out angrily. Well in the update he was doing really good and I think graduated with honors or something. But with a kid like Henry how do you fix something that isn't broken. I mean how do you help a kid that has no reason to be that way. If you can't find the reason for something then it can't be helped or changed.
The scary clown doll is hiding under my bed. -
Frosted-Flame — 14 years ago(July 25, 2011 10:05 AM)
I'm surprised no one has commented on this scene, either i'm being an utter dumbass for even considering this or I caught something no one else did.
In the film, Henry stated that he was once like Mark, "scared" until he realized he could do anything. It's a line that maybe means nothing or as part of manipulation by Henry, but i take it to mean something greater. Here's my theory (and this is only a theory):
Henry from a very very early age did have a psychiatric disorder, more of anxiety and in direct contrast to his current psychology was perhaps far too sensitive. He endured a trauma (lets say the death of someone he was close to him) that caused a psychotic break. Someone close to him died and his already overburdened sensitivity went into overload. Death of someone close to us is always hard but it nearly destroyed Henry. There was so much overload in his grief it destroyed a part of his soul as a way to cope. Get rid of the very thing that is killing you inside and you can live sorta thing and he experienced a psychotic break. And in that break he "discovered" nihilism and began to behave without the conscious that he had been burdened with so many years and was relieved and invigorated to be free from what crippled him. This leads to him doing things that he never would have done before he snapped as a reaffirmation (and perhaps to keep him from descending back into his old mind set).
This Show Was A Lot Funnier Before Kirstie Alley Ate Shelly Long -
romainsimoni-1 — 14 years ago(September 03, 2011 01:43 PM)
I always had the impression that Henry wasn't seen as part of the family by his mother (yes I do think the father had little to no role in the issue). The prolonged grief she passed through made Henry see himself as unfit. There was no emotional attachment displayed by Henry nor by his mother. Keep in mind that it's only impression that led me to this conclusion, never any character actually explained or is shown in such manner that supports this conclusion, only what I hinted by Henry and his mother facial expressions.
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Radalan — 14 years ago(January 21, 2012 01:10 AM)
That's because there is no evil per se.
There are just people and their behavior and people with different level of morale that judge them.
What clichs? Thats a word the wannabe critics use when they want to whinge. -
korro_dk — 14 years ago(February 25, 2012 12:58 AM)
I have a feeling that Henry was the way he was because he was consumed by jealousy, like revenge, it is a poison that can consume us, he was driven by resentment and jealousy of all the attention his parents were giving Richard. From Henry's point of view, Richard got in his way, he felt threatened and he let his resentment consume him. But resorting to murder especially of a young defensless toddler is unforgivable and Susan did what she felt was right in the end.
There's not much time left in the world. Kyle Reese - Terminator 2 Judgement Day Uncut Ed. (1991) -
fallen_anakin — 14 years ago(March 01, 2012 11:06 AM)
I'm not sure I agree about the jealousy thing. Well yes I agree he was jealous but here is what I think. They never showed how his parents treated Richard and his sister and how they treated him. But I get the impression that his parents would have given equal attention to all the kids. Yeah I know that a little toddler needs more physical attention than older kids but I think Henry just did not want to share anything at all with Richard or his sister. He had no reason to be jealous and was just jealous because there was a meaness inside of him. Now if his parents favored his siblings and treated him bad then I could totally see why he would go psycho. If you can stand to sit through a black and white movie from the fifties I suggest watching The Bad Seed. You can find it on netflix. It can be slow and the acting can be silly but I believe the little girl in the movie and Henry were similar. They both came from great surroundings but it was like they were born without a conscience.
The scary clown doll is hiding under my bed. -
korro_dk — 14 years ago(March 15, 2012 04:34 PM)
That is a very interesting theory, I might just do that and find "the bad seed", I already had a look at the page, that looks very interesting.
There's not much time left in the world. Kyle Reese - Terminator 2 Judgement Day Uncut Ed. (1991) -
fiatlux-1 — 14 years ago(March 25, 2012 11:08 PM)
Henry was a psychopath and a sociopath. People mention his comments to Mark about how he used to feel scared and then 'decided' not to be. I don't think that comment changes anything. Sociopaths and psychopaths can feel fear, there's no mention of a fearlessness in those conditions. Henry likely just merely got tired of his own fear and drew up a wall against it, decided to focus solely on his pleasures. Unfortunately, his pleasures all involved pain and manipulation.
And the poster that mentioned that sociopaths don't always kill anyone is 100% correct. In fact, there are thousands of sociopaths that never commit ANY crimemost likely because they don't want to go to prison! They may not feel empathy toward most or any person, but that doesn't mean they commit crimes.
"I'd say this cloud is Cumulo Nimbus."
"Didn't he discover America?"
"Penfold, shush." -
Petronius Arbiter II — 13 years ago(May 27, 2012 11:39 PM)
Henry is so evil because he's not real.
I mean that quite seriously. He's a fictional character. His existence is dictated by the moviemakers' desire to create an entertaining story.
Almost everybody who's posted on this thread buys into the "Pop Psychology" premise that there are people who are just plain born bad, that they just lack any kind of conscience. Like a person who was born without legs, or something like that.
That makes an entertaining story, all right. The way Macaulay Culkin played the character, I could almost believe it could happen that way in real life. But I don't.
Please realize, there's a world of difference between pop psychology and
real
psychology. Sure, there are some psychologists and psychiatrists who agree with that theory of psychopathology but there are just as many who don't. And even more who say, the jury's still out on that question, and it's likely to be out for a long, long time.
I'm not in any way a psychology/sociology professional, but I've spent a lot of time paying attention to what such people are talking and writing about. I'm strongly inclined to agree with the "jury's still out, and won't be coming back to the courtroom any time soon" camp.
It's kind of an epistemological question to begin with: if there really are people who were "just born without a conscience," how would we know? Just what do we
mean
by the word "conscience," anyway? Since it's so obviously conceptually related to "consciousness," and since we know that almost anybody can have profound changes in consciousness in a lifetime, for myriads of reasons, who can honestly say that any other person is incapable of ever changing for the better?
"I don't deduce, I observe." -
fallen_anakin — 13 years ago(June 26, 2012 10:30 AM)
He is exactly the boy version of Rhoda from The BAD Seed. Their sociopathy came from within as the result of genetics somewhere or something inside. Both had great families and were loved but they were just mean. I suggest watching The Bad Seed. Its a 50's movie and the acting is corny but the little girl is creepy as hell. None of the murders are shown but only talked about and described so its not really a horror movie but a mystery thriller. Creepy though.
The scary clown doll is hiding under my bed. -
Ode-to-a-Loner — 13 years ago(August 18, 2012 06:53 PM)
As other people have stated, I think that Henry was just born that way. He does not have any real bonding emotions, but he can fake it in order to fit in and be seen as normal. The scene in which he wears the mask is symbolic, because it showed that every day of his life he was essentially wearing a mask of normalcy, all while quietly manipulating people and engaging in evil acts for his own amusement and gratification.
I've met a handful of people that I thought were inflicted with some kind of personality disorder. There were a couple of them that I thought definitely had narcissistic personality disorder, and then others that I thought had antisocial personality disorder. One of them seemed to have Aspd because of neglect and overall bad treatment in childhood. From observing his behavior and then reflecting back on it, I don't think this individual actually gave a crap about anyone else, but he was good at appearing to care. The other one was just downright creepy, but in a subtle way, and I believe that this individual was more like Henry, born that way, but she was functional and could live her life appearing normal, and not engaging in any behavior that would get her into trouble with the law. But just thinking about her gives me the creeps because I knew something was off about her very early on after meeting her.
There was also a girl that I knew years ago when I was in elementary school, and she was a bully, but when I think back on it, in addition to being a bully, she just seemed sinister, like she was constantly trying to manipulate people. She wasn't just a typical "mean girl" type but actually a sinister person. And another child that I came to the conclusion was off was my aunts daughter. This child was also very manipulative starting at an early age. While I was staying at their house one time, I was in my room and the daughter came in, and observed me while I was putting some things away. Well, the next thing I know, some money of mine was missing. Come to find out that she had taken it from my room, and then acted like she didn't know anything about it. That could just be chalked up to a child misbehaving, but I don't think so, because I onserved her behavior, otherwise, and she just generally seemed off. My sister, who later spent time around the girl, also came to the same conclusion, and this was without me having said anything to her beforehand, about my own observations.
"Stop grinning like a psycho, and get back to work." Doakes, on Dexter