Albert Fish: In Sin He Found Salvation (2007)

Simply A Masterpiece

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Albert Fish's story is one of the most fascinating and shocking American tales of the 20th century. If you haven't heard of him or seen this film, feel free to take the time to Google his name and get some backstory.If you've already done that, then this film isn't really going to tell you anything new. "Albert Fish", the film, offers a confusingly paced story told through cheaply produced reenactments, with input from subjects without any real qualifications to be exploring the mind of a serial killer, sexual predator, and psychopath.The film opens with the story of the Grace Budd murder, including a voice-over (portraying Fish) reading the infamous letter. During which we hear melodramatic sound effects including a second voice-over (portraying Budd) squealing "I'll tell Momma!" with a tone so campy I literally started laughing out loud. It's then explained how Westchester Police used the letter to finally arrest Fish. So right off the bat the most horrific and compelling chapter of Fish's disturbing life is laid out to us, removing all drama it could've held later.But that's OK. This film isn't interested in drama. It's interested in exploring Fish's religious psychosis without any real narrative to follow. And it insists on laying out the depth of Fish's psychosis not through psychoanalyses, but through lots of projection from its interviewees and even more cheaply made dramatizations portraying what the film insists are the visions Fish had. Fish may very well have had some extreme religious psychosis, but the film makes little effort to produce the evidence of this.It also provides little background of Fish himself. Mentioned sporadically throughout the film are anecdotes about his childhood and adult life, but rarely is this explained in any detail or with any connection to a narrative. The film notes his married life, fatherhood, and abandonment by his wife with little interest in the psychological impact any of these aspects had.Many reviews have claimed Joe Coleman's inclusion in the film was superfluous, but I disagree. Coleman was the perfect allegory for what the film was trying to accomplish: heavy projection in lieu of evidence or thoughtful examination. Coleman's credentials hardly make him an authority on the subject of serial killers. Such as they are, his greatest attributes seem to be having a creepy collection of souvenirs and apparently stealing the Grace Budd letter from the police. Unable to speak authoritatively on Fish, he instead openly uses his own religious background to speculate greatly on the motives for Fish's crimes. Eventually he claims that he (Coleman) personally was meant to own the letter.If you are hoping to learn anything new about Albert Fish, head to the library, because you won't find it here. It you'd like to literally watch paint dry (there's a reenactment in the film which gives us this opportunity) feel free to watch this film.

The story is so horrifying and gruesome, even by today's standards, that the director's attempts at dramatization add nothing and are more of a distraction. Multiple shots of roasting meat in the shape of ass? Really? And too much time is spent with two dubious "experts," one of whom proudly describes how he acquired Fish's confession letter in an act of larceny (anyone send a copy of this film to the cops in Westchester County?) and who creepily asserts that Fish MUST have loved Grace Buddd in order to do what he did to her. Huh? Anyone want to go dig around in THIS guy's backyard? And all of the religious motivation nonsense is completely at odds with what we know about sexual homicide. It's all about a toxic mix of extreme self absorption and the desire to control others with a nice positive feedback of orgasm. That's it folks. No religious motive here. The religious stuff may have helped him rationalize what he did and certainly sweetened the filth aspect for this guy, but that's probably it. Read Schecter's Deranged instead for a good Fish account.

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.

I could have accepted a lot of the 'artistic license' used in this film if it were claiming to be a movie based on fact, rather than presenting itself as a documentary. A previous comment does a good job of pointing out the errors in the added period footage.It was a good introduction into a serial murderer I'd never heard of. It was also a disgusting overly dramatized exercise in attempting to concentrate more on the gross out factor than reporting the facts. Not content to describe once how good certain parts of a child's body were when roasted and eaten, it describes the heinous deeds in fact and again in a first person voice-over narrated by an actor playing Albert Fish.For shock affect it delved into ramming the details of his crimes down the throat of the viewer, again and again. At the expense of his victims and their families the film wallows in filth and was offensive in the extreme because of it. Either we're too stupid to digest the horror of his acts, or sales were forefront and above any other consideration the film makers claim.It's not a documentary. A documentary informs us of real events without trying to sicken people with fictitious scenes added catering to the director's opinion of what took place. That's fiction. It's not a movie, in a movie you can accept that 'based on' gives the director license to add whatever he thinks will sell. It is a sick perverted film on a sick perverted killer but that not being enough, it approaches the same type of sick twisted deeds on film, that Fish did in person. In this, the film makers succeed in showing their perverted intention on wringing out every last drop of human suffering in their own race for sales.Joe Coleman, obviously delighted to lay claim to notoriety by surrounding himself with the artifacts of the infamous and psychotic members of our society, sits smugly as he tells us he's thrilled to have the original letter sent to one victim's family, describing what Fish did to their child. How he was 'meant' to have it. Most serial murderers take trophies and this particular derelict of humanity, Coleman, does the same here, living with the material surrounding the worst part of themselves humanity has to offer. If any proof was needed for what I'm saying here, it's in the repeated interviews with this piece of crap. His sole participation in this film should have been only in examining this letter. Instead we're treated to repeated interview segments with no other reason than to try and help sell this presentation of crap.These flaws ruin what could have been a remarkable recounting of Fish's deeds. The makers of this prostituted themselves for sales and in doing so, reflect a watered down mirror of the same sort of sickness Fish succumbed to. It's a perverted reporting of a perverted person and because of this they have more in common with this man than they may want to realize.