Mark Reviews Movies: RANDOM ACTS OF VIOLENCE (2020)

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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 19, 2020

For as long as there have been critical discussions of art, there have been debates about whether or not art possesses any tangible influence on people's thinking and actions. One of the main subjects, of course, is if depictions of violence in media can cause people to enact violence in reality. That's the subject of co-writer/director Jay Baruchel's Random Acts of Violence, in which a comic book creator has to face the accusations of his critics in increasingly gruesome and personal ways.

On its face, the film looks and mostly plays like a typical slasher story, as a group of friends take a road trip to a place where legends of a seemingly unstoppable killer have a foundation in real violence. The twist of sorts is that the legend only exists because of a few of our protagonists.

The violence was undoubtedly real. A few decades prior, an unknown man targeted people along a stretch of highway. When found, the bodies of the victims had been staged—arranged in grisly tableaux. It was real horror for the area, especially for survivors and relatives of the murdered.

As for the focus of this story, it's placed on comic writer and artist Todd (Jesse Williams), who heard about and studied these killings, only to consider them some kind of twisted form of artistic expression. They inspired him to create a comic book series revolving around a demented anti-hero named "Slasherman," whose murderous escapades found a basis in the so-called I-90 Killer but were given some additional, gory flair by way of Todd's own imagination.

Slasherman became popular. The I-90 Killer became more than just a string of unsolved crimes and entered into the realm of legend. Now, it's time to bring the story of Slasherman to a close, and Todd realizes he has no idea how to end his main character's story. What can and should he say as a final statement about his fictional killer and the real-life murderer who inspired him? Does he actually have anything of value to say, or has this series been what the harsher critics call it: hollow, exploitative junk that revels in pain and the cheap thrill of bloody carnage?

That's the basic setup of Baruchel and Jesse Chabot's screenplay (based on a one-shot comic book by Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti), and in case it isn't clear, this is no mere, ordinary slasher movie. Baruchel wants to explore the relationship between violence in art and that in reality, as Todd has to confront his critics, people who were directly affected by the murders, some fans who seem to prove the naysayers correct, and, ultimately, the apparent return of the dormant serial killer.

Joining Todd on his road trip to the scene of past carnage are his girlfriend Kathy (Jordana Brewster), his publisher Ezra (Baruchel), and the publisher's assistant Aurora (Niamh Wilson). Kathy is tagging along because she's writing a book about the I-90 Killer—or, more accurately, about the murder victims, who have been all but forgotten with the success of Slasherman as a popular anti-hero. Ezra, an independent comic publisher worried about losing his most successful series, has come to convince Todd to keep writing. Aurora, a talented artist in her own right, wants to prove that she could be more than an assistant.

The characters here are pretty thin, but to compensate, they're mostly stand-ins for ideas. Aurora voices the notion that art about horrific things is like an act of exorcism—transforming negative thoughts and feelings into something productive. Ezra profits off the comic and the debate surrounding it, never giving any thought to either—until, perhaps too late, the faces of a trio of new victims stare at him from the TV during a lonely night in a motel room. Kathy wants to give voice to the voiceless, because it's the one thing Todd has never tried to do. Todd has some stock responses to the tough questions about his comic, but they can't stand up to the scrutiny of an interviewer who was childhood friends with one of the victims.

This story eventually does introduce a masked killer, either the original one or someone inspired by Todd's comic, who begins a new killing spree. As with the thoughtful discussions between these characters, Baruchel treats the depictions of violence here in a discomfortingly straightforward manner.

Take the first such scene, as trio of teenagers get a flat tire in the middle of the highway, only to be confronted by the masked man. The most disorienting thing is what's absent from the scene. There's no music score, just the pounding of rain on the car and the road or the pummeling of flesh with a blade. Baruchel doesn't attempt to trick us with staging and editing. We know exactly where the killer is at every moment.

When it comes, the actual violence, portrayed with shocking realism (The driver's look of surprise when the knife strikes her leg is particularly chilling), is sudden and unceasingly brutal. Baruchel wants to stun us out of our expectations for this kind of story. A clichéd approach, filled with musical stings and jump scares, would defeat the purpose. Most of the violence here plays out in a similar matter.

At least it does until the main characters have to confront the masked killer. Like the story's comic creator, the film itself seems uncertain about where to take this material. The filmmakers may have stretched their aims too far with Random Acts of Violence, especially considering how routine the extended climax becomes (notwithstanding a hauntingly serene flashback to a murder from the perspective of a child). Even with those shortcomings, though, the film is an intelligent dissection of a genre and exploration of some troubling ideas.

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