#202: The Gray Man
A journey into the twisted mind of America’s most notorious childeater
This review was originally posted to Twitter on January 2, 2020.
Initial release: August 31, 2007
Director: Scott L. Flynn
Before Anthony Sowell, before the Railroad Killer, before Richard Ramirez, before Ted Bundy, before the Zodiac Killer — hell, before Ed Gein — there was Albert Fish. Beneath the mask of a kindly grandfather was a twisted, evil mind.
Though he’s mostly forgotten today, Fish stands as perhaps the first major serial killer in early modern America (if you don’t count H. H. Holmes;) though his confirmed body count is relatively low, it’s the grisliness of his crimes — and his account of the murder of Grace Budd — that makes him stand out.
Released a year before Clint Eastwood’s Changeling depicted the once-infamous Wineville Chicken Coop Murders from around Fish’s time, The Grey Man isn’t like Eastwood’s hard-hitting, genre-busting film, but is still a chilling tale of Fish, his family, and the man who caught him. It opens with boys in an orphanage in the 1870s enduring a round of religious-tinged corporal punishment; the scene is intercut with the much-older Fish engaging in ritual self-flagellation, drawing a direct line from child abuse to personal abuse. The film does this a lot; many times, Fish sees a hallucination of himself as one of those boys, shirtless in suspenders. It’s a hokey element, the boy in that classic blurry ghost image popular in horror films of the time; what it implies detracts from the film, in my opinion.
That aside, this is still a quality film that builds itself on a mostly no-name cast. Former James Bond villain Patrick Bauchau is masterful as Fish; beneath a seemingly genuine kindly grandpa act is something broken that I can’t put my finger on. He almost had me believing it myself. Opposite him is Jack Conley as detective William King. Conley has a long resume of mostly bit parts, but his punched-up face, square jaw and gravelly narration make him seem almost born for a gritty detective role right out of central casting. In between are some of the souls unfortunate enough to be Fish’s children, who have very different experiences of what it was like to grow up under their father; and the Budd family, devastated by the loss of Grace, yet — at least in her mother’s case — eager for attention. The film switches frequently between Fish and King, following Fish as his ranting, misogynistic letters get him kicked out of his apartment once again, his murder of Grace Budd, the time he spent in an asylum for indecent exposure, and his eventual capture by a dogged King.
King’s scenes play out like a classic film noir, complete with voiceover; it’s a stark contrast to Fish, who, outside of a brief moment during the title sequence, largely speaks for himself through Bauchau’s acting. In a sense, this is King’s story.
The New York of the late 1920s-early 30s is sketched out faithfully without leaning into pastiche. The camera work in this film isn’t always exemplary, but it gets the job done; still, Flynn surprises you sometimes, angling for a long shot through a dilapidated house for example. A stand-out scene is shortly after Grace’s murder, where Fish is preparing a meal, the meat hanging in a red-lit closet, recalling the barbecue scene from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. We know what the meat is, and even when he shuts the door, we can see it through the crack. On the downside, the soundtrack is a largely generic mix of suspenseful strings and the like, often mixed up a little too loud, or playing in scenes where silence — or something calmer at least — would have been more appropriate. It’s also frustratingly limited and predictable.
This might be the only drama about Fish. Given the extremity of his paraphilias it would be easy to turn out graphic, exploitative schlock. But this is instead a more understated, uneasy killer-and-detective drama that, in spite of missteps, is as good a crime flick as any.
