The movie – “Confessions of a Serial Killer” – features a starring performance by an Austin man who might have become famous if fate hadn’t gotten in the way.
AUSTIN, Texas — Austin actor Bob Burns was best known as the art director for “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and a host of other scary movies.
But it’s his unknown-until-now performance as a serial killer in a recently rediscovered movie made in in Austin in 1985 that is getting new attention for his frightening portrayal of a killer.
Burns played the lead role in the horror movie “Confessions of a Serial Killer,” which was loosely based on the crimes of real-life killer Henry Lee Lucas. It was briefly released to theaters in 1985 but was soon withdrawn and put on the shelf, rarely seen again.
Thirty-nine years later, the movie was released on both regular and blu ray DVD this summer. Its availability gives audiences the opportunity to see Burns, the actor, who might have had a long and successful career on-screen had fate not intervened in the form of a different movie with a similar theme and story.
“There was another movie that viewers were probably confusing it with called ‘Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer’ that was released around the same time and got all the attention,” writer and former Austin American-Statesmen and Dallas Morning News film critic Joe O’Connell said. “It’s just that thing of having another movie to competing with you. It’s tough.”
Burns’ friend Joe O’Connell believes Burns could have had a successful career as an actor if more people would have seen “Confessions of a Serial Killer.”
“I think people who see it are going to admire his performance. It’s a creepy movie, perhaps a good Halloween film,” O’Connell said.
A couple of years ago, O’Connell made his own movie about Bob Burns as a creative artist and Burns’ obsession with Hollywood actor Rondo Hattan, who had a deformed face from a condition known as acromegaly. Hattan played in many horror films of the 1930s and 1940s. Burns never met him but spoke of him often.
O’Connell’s film is called “Rondo and Bob,” and has been included with the new DVDs that feature “Confessions of a Serial Killer.”
Now that Burns’ chilling performance as a killer can finally be seen by the public, it raises the question: If film producers and movie critics could have seen him in the film he starred in 39 years ago, might he have become a successful film actor? Sadly, it’s a question that will be left unanswered.
Burns passed away in 2004.
