Albert Fish: In Sin He Found Salvation (2007)

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This was apparently made in 2007, but has a much much older feel. Pretty much all documentaries from the mid-80's and back have this same lowbrow over dramatic recreations.It has no proper flow, no credible basis for telling a story that is already written for them, and just generally insulted my intelligence. On several occasions while watching this I asked myself... do they think I'm some moron who's drooling on themselves? This could be used as an example of the worst way to document something on film.The maker of this, and anyone who likes this style of documentary, must live on a different planet than me, and may be even be a different species of human.

Okay, this is not the 'documentary' I had expected, but the tagline 'In sin he found salvation' could have been an indication. This is not so much a professional documentary as it as an amateur project that throws several overly exaggerated ingredients (such as re-enactments, bombastic music, religious scenes and voice-overs) into the mix with the serious subject matter of an American serial killer (among other horrific things) called Albert Fish who lived in the 19th and 20th century.It would be easy to disqualify this (and it should be, for the greater part) as an over the top piece of amateur art that does not distantiate itself enough from the dark matter it claims to shed light on. Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate a good hobby project that is labored with love^ - and this seems to be just that - but the fiction and non-fiction are just not in sync here. The re-enactments are mostly of poor imagination, a lot of it is repetitive, the voice-overs are stereotypical and the music is pompous and unimaginative. The only pluses that I can find are the use of clips from old New York, actual pictures of Fish and newspaper clippings and Fish' accounts of his life and that of several sources around him from that time. And a few re-enactments were actually okay.Beyond those ingredients, especially the presence of painter Joe Coleman jumps out; his adoration for Fish borderlines the unsound, even though he at times wants to emphasize otherwise. Or maybe he is better with paint than with words? In any case, I felt he had no place here, other than that he may have offered the original 'Albert Fish letter' for display. The only other interviewee, Katherine Ramsland, is an author and professor who is apparently most famous for her book 'The science of vampires'. I haven't read it, nor do I know anything about her other work, but why would someone of status would get involved in something like this? It makes me wonder.I agree that the story of Albert Fish and his victims is one that should be told, but this is not the way (let alone the fact that a few details about the Grace Budd killing were inaccurate). Or at the very least, not for me. Still 4 out of 10, because there was still plenty of info and footage to be appreciated.^ The call of Cthulhu (2005) or Wisconsin death trip (1999) for instance.

I had the unfortunate chance to watch it in a theater. This is a TV documentary and not to be seen on theater!!Many things bothered me, but the fact that the narrator was repeating the same informations 3 times through out the "docu" completely annoyed me.It was very annoying how much effort the creators put into making it a shockumentary. But it was o-so- lame. Over dramatic narrator pointing out words like "pain" and "virgin" and "fish" and the dramatization focused on very handsome naked teens instead of the brutality and the character and the causes of Albert Fish. It only gave us a spoonful about Fish and repeated the same informations again and again and again and then "naked teens" and "virgin" and only had 2 interviewers!!The worst one was this psycho horror artifacts creator who was mainly talking about himself and his origins and a few words about Fish as if he had something important to add to Fish's story. And the other one was a woman obsessed with Fish and his sexual life. At a point they had access to Fish's psychiatrist records and they didn't use real Fish's voice at all, and his sayings for not more than 5 minutes! Why??In a few words don't waste your time with it, it's just super lame.

This is a brilliantly filmed documentary on one of America's most notorious serial killers, Albert Fish. The film contains intricately detailed and accurate accounts of the crimes and does not shy away from the sheer brutality of it's subject matter during the re-enactment segments either. The musical score adds to the creepiness of this bone chilling account of a man who is undoubtedly the worst criminal of the twentieth century! As the film reveals, there is no known perversion that this creepy old man did not practice and practice frequently on both himself and others. He was a cannibal, a pedophile, a necrophile, a masochist and a sadist and he also practiced numerous other unspeakable perversions! Known to have murdered several children (the actual count of which were lost in his foggy memory) and most noted for having inserted dozens of needles into his own body, many of which were discovered after his death rusted and corroded (an indication that they had been there for YEARS) and dangerously close to vital organs. The actor who portrays the "Moon Maniac" in this film bears an utterly chilling resemblance to the actual perpetrator and this aspect only adds to the value of this film. The DVD release boasts of additional footage and documentaries on the case and the film itself. True crime buffs and horror movie fans alike will thrill to the delight of this devilishly gruesome little documentary!