Leonardo DiCaprio is stepping back into a role that could easily see him bag an Oscar, and if anyone can help him achieve that, it’s Martin Scorsese.
The iconic director, who was heavily involved in some of Leo’s classic films, including Wolf of Wall Street, Gangs of New York, Shutter Island and The Departed, has just cast the now 40-year-old in a film that is more than likely going to test him.
Leonardo will take the form of H.H. Holmes, better known as Dr. Henry Howard Holmes, who is documented as one of the first serial killers in the modern sense of the term. Holmes admitted to killing 27 women in the time surrounding the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, but it’s widely believed that he murdered over 200 victims in total.
There is plenty of material on Holmes, who was also the chilling subject of Erik Larson’s bestselling 2003 book ‘The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic And Madness At The Fair That Changed America.’
Holmes was not your ordinary backstreet grabber, though, and had a pretty murderous weapon that took the form of a hotel that is today nicknamed ‘The Murder Castle.’
The building was a death trap in every sense of the word. Home to enormous furnaces, large vaults and custom build acid pits, the sadistic Dr would dispose of his victims in a variety of ways – often torturing them in said vaults. But even more disturbing is the selection of rooms that had gas lines fed into them in order to suffocate some people in their sleep.
The hotel is also rumoured to be the inspiration for the upcoming fifth season of American Horror Story, although this hasn’t been confirmed.
It’s going to be an incredibly complex role to take on and accurately portray, but if anyone is up to the task, DiCaprio is. And we think he will revel in it.
We’ll leave you with one H.H. Holmes quote that could one day in the future, be one of Leonardo’s most iconic: “Yes I was born with the devil in me. I was born with the evil standing as my sponsor beside the bed where I was ushered into the world, and he has been with me since.”
*Shudders*
