I didn't know much about this Albert Fish until this week. I saw 'Albert Fish: In Sin He Found Redemption' a few days before and even though that was not a good film, the story remains one that is haunting, to say the least. I went on reading up on him on the net and came across this film.Patrick Bauchau does a very decent job of portraying The Gray Man, but overall I found this to be a mediocre film. The settings, the clothing, the music, it was all nicely done, but somehow something felt amiss. A well worked out storyline perhaps? Beside Fish, the viewer is presented with the primary detective on the case - voice-over included - and his investigation. I found it to be rather boring and cliché and not adding to the story of Fish. Then there were the children of Fish, which made for an interesting angle, but somehow that didn't impress me much either. It all just didn't come together.I'm glad I've seen this one, and it gets away with a small 6 out of 10, but that's about it. If only David Fincher would take it upon him to make more films about infamous serial killers...

Considering that this film was supposed to tell the story about one of the most bizarre serial killers in history, it's absolutely amazing that the end result we get served is this tedious muck. Something is definitely wrong when you realize that the film you are watching easily can be labeled " a film for the whole family", a film the Hallmark channel would "proudly present." Instead of a thoroughly deep-dive into Mr. Fish's murky psyche, a proper probing into the mechanizations that drove this deranged specimen of a man, a both tell and show with the slaughter and cannibalizing of Grace Budd, what you get is a badly acted detective-story ( with film-noiresque monologue ), a lead that don't remotely look like Albert Fish, and a misplaced focus on the detective in charge. The gore is of course non-existent, and while this "tell, don't show" approach work excellently in films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Dahmer, here it is sorely missed. Inexcusable. Not to mention that certain liberties is being taken in regards to what really happened.Bottom line; if you want a scary film for the kiddies ( age 3-12 ), go for this one!! On the other hand, if you want a properly nasty horror-film about good old Albert, you better keep your fingers crossed for a director that truly have the courage to handle this dark material the way it deserves! Hopefully soon one will come along......

When I was a kid, I read comic books and in those comics were ads for everything from "sea monkeys" to books about "freaks." One ad showed an elderly, bewhiskered man named Albert Fish; beneath his picture was the word "cannibal." In my neighborhood, there was an old man who looked a LOT like Albert Fish: his skin and his hair were gray, and he wore an ankle-length gray trenchcoat. He would stand across the street from the grade school I attended and accost kids on their way home every day. I asked who he was and someone told me that his name was "Pork Chop." I made a point of avoiding him. But there came a day when I had to stay after school for some long-forgotten reason. As I crossed the street, I realized that someone was following me. I turned, and there was Pork Chop. He reached for me. "Come here, son," he whispered. I backed away, shaking my head, and looked toward the school- but the school was empty and deserted now. Pork Chop came at me, arm outstretched. I ran. My mother called the police when I got home and I went back with them to the place where I'd been accosted, but Pork Chop was gone. A door-to-door search yielded no results. I've never forgotten that close encounter, nor Albert Fish, "cannibal." While I think that Bauchau is probably a lot more cultured than the real-life Fish was, his is still a riveting performance and helps make THE GRAY MAN a true crime movie worth watching. The only real problem with it is the inordinate amount of time that is spent on the obsessed cop: real or a fictional construct, he's not the reason to see THE GRAY MAN.

One thing that has always bewildered me about movies portraying true events is the film makers' habit of changing the story to suit their Hollywood vision. This movie did a surprisingly good job of sticking to the facts, however, it still fails to be 100% truthful. For instance, it was not Grace Budd, but her little sister Beatrice who was asked to fetch her brother from his friends house on that first meeting. Fish didn't lay eyes on little Grace until the second visit to the Budds' house at which point he immediately decided to dupe the family into letting him take her away with him. Also, detective King finds a clipping in Fish's rooms saying that the Gaffney boy's corpse was found in a trash bin, but in fact, despite Fish's later confession that he dumped the boys remain in trash dumps, the body was never recovered. One more thing that the movie decided to change, maybe for effect, was Fish's arrest. He did not attack the detectives with a knife, but rather went willingly. These details it chooses to change (as well as a few others) aren't incredibly significant, but why change them at all? Certainly the story of Albert Fish needs no twisting or exaggeration to be one of the most horrific tales in American History. The film is an abbreviated account of years of Fish's criminal history. In addition to making very brief mention of his crimes against Billy Gaffney and Francis McDonnell and focusing mainly (as the media did at the time) on the murder of Grace Budd. It also chose to leave out some of the more unsavory details of his sexual paraphilia, such as his habit of soaking alcohol soaked cotton into his rectum and lighting it on fire, also omitted was his fetish for eating human feces and urine. Perhaps the filmmakers didn't want it to be a stomach-turning horror fest. However, as a crime drama it does just fine. The acting is not spectacular which gives the film a bit of a "made for TV" feeling. But the chronology and main details of the investigation were pretty right on, including many small details and direct quotes taken right out of case files and court room transcription. I would have liked them to spend a bit more time detailing the criminal trial as it was very revealing into Albert Fish's psychopathy. All in all the movie kept me entertained and I was impressed by the inclusion of minor details and the accuracy of the story telling.