Through the 1980s the big mainstream Hollywood horror franchise is like Elm Street and Friday

the 13th felt like they were aimed at teen audiences, popcorn movies for a Friday night.

But other lesser known, low budget indie horror films were taking the genre to new

extremes.

In 1986 director John McNaughton made a low budget horror film loosely based on real-life

serial killer Henry Lee Lucas.

The marketing for Henry Portrait of a serial killer linked the film to popular horror

franchises at the time.

The film even included a tagline that said he's not Freddy, he's not Jason, he's Henry.

But this was nothing like a Freddy or Jason film.

The nasty, unflinching filmmaking made it a deeply disturbing and uncomfortable watch.

And it wasn't the first home invasion horror film of the 80s to achieve this.

Many speculate whether Henry Portrait of a serial killer was in fact influenced by a lesser

known Austrian horror movie from 1983 called Anxed.

Anxed was also loosely based on a real-life mass murderer and the film directed by Gerald

Cargill was a brutal and nightmare-ish home invasion movie, which, like Henry, aligned

us squarely with the psychotic serial killer as our main character.

Although it wasn't widely seen at the time, it's hard to ignore Anxed's influence on

movies that would come later.

Not just Henry, but the films of Gaspanoe, Michael Hanukkah, Lars Von Trier and many of

the films we now come to think of as quintessential home invasion movies.

Join me as we continue exploring the evolution of home invasion and we discuss Gerald Cargill's

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