'Confessions of a Serial Killer' (1985) - Mark Blair.

Allegedly based on the true story of America's most notorious serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, Mark Blair's unsettling low key 'Confessions of a Serial Killer', while lacking hyperbolic grue, the film has considerable artistic merit, not the least of which being the exceptional acting from the entirely splendid cast, with an especially vacant, eerily credible performance from creepily curb-crawling Robert A. Burns as the itinerant, perversely polaroid-taking slayer Daniel Ray Hawkins. Released a year before John McNaughton's iconic 'Henry: Portrait of a serial killer' to far less media fanfare, Blair's blunt, doomy dissection of this soullessly compulsive maniac effectively draws you uncomfortably deep into the sleazy killer's reprehensibly callous modus operandi. 

As the unsophisticated, lazy-eyed Hawkins blandly recounts his multitude of nefarious crimes to the initially incredulous Sheriff Will Gaines (Berkley Garrett) we see just how coldly calculating this abject human is, crudely utilizing a number of standard serial killer ploys to lower the women's defences just long enough to strike. His motives apparently asexual, Hawkins finds momentary rapture in the egregious act of arbitrary murder. The standout sequence when Hawkins and his graceless partners-in-slime Molly Lewton (Sidney Brammer) and her no less degenerated brother brother Moon Lewton (Dennis Hill) take temporary shelter in the home of unsuspecting Doctor Earl Krivics (Ollie Handlie) is deliciously chilling! Outside of the quality performances, William Penn's menacing synth score is another highlight of the grim, oft neglected 'Confessions of a serial killer', a stark, frequently distressing expose of a singularly distempered mind!

Avid horror film addicts might also like to note that Robert A. Burns was also the gifted art director on Tobe Hooper's legendary 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' and Wes Craven's no less essential 'The Hills Have Eyes'.