Random Acts of Violence (2020)

Movie: Random Acts of Violence (2020), directed by Jay Baruchel

Watched on: Shudder

Ran: 7.33 miles, 9’04”/mile, 01:07:29 (light run, weights day)

 

It’s Maniac Monday! No, I don’t know if that’s going to become a thing around here, but I did notice that I hadn’t watched a slasher flick in a while, so I went huntin’ for something to remedy that situation. Random Acts of Violence just came out like a week ago, and it didn’t disappoint. Well, it didn’t disappoint me, anyway; some fans of the original graphic novel aren’t super-happy with this cinematic adaptation, but I’ve not read the comic, so I can only judge the film as a standalone work—and on its own, I hold RAoV to be a more-than-competent entry in the field.

 

The movie’s plot is spare enough to hang well on the bones of a trim 80-minute runtime: Todd is a Canadian indie comic writer and artist whose successful anti-hero Slasherman is inspired by the real-life (in RAoV, not REAL real-life) I-90 Killer, a serial killer who abducted and murdered dozens but was never caught. Slasherman’s run is winding to a close, but Todd can’t come up with a fitting ending. He and his wife Kathy, who is herself working on a book about the I-90 Killer’s victims, hop in a car with Ezra the publisher and Aurora the assistant and set out on a road trip south, across the border and through the killing fields for inspiration, on the way to Todd’s comic convention. (And yes, the Canadians do comment along the lines of “look out, they have guns down here.”) Along the way, people start turning up brutally murdered—in ways taken straight from the pages of Todd’s comic. The violence gets closer the farther they get from home… and the killer keeps calling Todd right before the deaths. Will Todd live long enough to find his ending?

 

Let me say straight out, RAoV takes a while to get there (because there’s, y’know, an actual story with characters happening), but it is most definitely graphic and gory and bloody; it checks all those boxes. Where it falls down a little on the Slasher Rubric o’ Greatness™ is perhaps in its killer, who is not especially catchy or interesting, but I suspect that’s by design. Thematically speaking, he needs to be dull. See, RAoV is unusual in that it raises the sort of questions that fans of the genre have heard all too often from critics: does exposure to this sort of violent material make someone more likely to commit acts of violence? Todd was inspired by the I-90 Killer to create Slasherman; has someone else been inspired by Slasherman to recreate his fictional murders in real life? How complicit is Todd, then, in these new murders? And what is RAoV saying when it raises these issues—and then entertains us with the exact sort of graphic material it’s questioning?

 

Maybe it’s just a throwaway pose, or an empty and cynical attempt to cash in on controversy, but I don’t think so. There’s some real substance when Todd and Kathy are arguing about his potential glorification of the original killer versus her alleged attempt to tell the victims’ stories. Listen to her voice when she tells Todd that these murders “came from [his] head.” And the film works up to an interesting revelation about the I-90 Killer’s motivations and retirement that I won’t spoil here, but suffice it to say that I think RAoV has real things to say on the subject, even if, by the end, it can’t quite make up its mind. That seems to irk a lot of viewers who disliked the movie, but hey—if you’re a fan of horror movies and you HAVE made up your mind, I’m not so sure that’s a good thing. Keep questioning, folks. It keeps you spry.

 

So if you’re a slasher fan who’s only in it for a double-digit body count and fake blood best measured in hogsheads (that’s 52ish gallons, apparently? It’s not like you gotta be super-precise at these volumes, is my point), then maybe RAoV isn’t your cup of suspiciously-red tea. But if you fancy a bit more backstory and character development than what’s in your garden-variety ’80s-era slasher, plus maybe a little social commentary and food for thought, RAoV has you covered and still has gore to spare. It’s just that you might wind up thinking about why you’re watching that gore in the first place.