Random Acts of Violence (2019)

The scene where the I-90 killer pulls his van in front of an SUV with people in it and Kathy doesn’t just barrel her car into the sonofabitch lost me. What I did think was interesting was the idea of the killer “remaining dormant” from like 1991 until 2018-ish (or so we are led to believe; does a killer ever really stop?), that homicidal psychosis triggered by Slasherman comics left behind at a ratty service station in the middle of nowhere by the very mind responsible for “detailing” his activities. The script provides the contrivance of that I-90 killer happening to be at that service station not long after Todd and his buddy, Ezra (responsible for publishing the comic books), left issues on an empty spinning rack, but without that there wouldn’t be a slasher film I don’t guess. Baruchel (who gets his head shattered by the killer’s machine fire through the backseat window) and Chabot include a flashback and horrible memory where the I-90 killer, who works as a welder, his helmet pull up and look into the eyes of Todd while a kid on a bike inspiring the hideous artwork to come, murdered the Slasherman artist’s mother…during Christmastime no less, not long after video recording his mom singing in the choir at church!

For some reason, at the end when Hussain’s camera approaches “HOME”, I was eerily reminded of Kubrick and Alcott’s shot of the entrance of Room 237 in <b>The Shining</b>. I don’t know if that was the intent, but something about the score and how Todd was moving towards the killer’s door, the camera drawing towards the horrors inside; I dunno, it hit me like that.

I did feel Baruchel really was going for something grandiose, and there was something to their possible message of glorifying the actual violence inflicted by someone real on others and/or using tragedy of the past as inspiration for whatever art might derive from death and murder. I always think of the victims when I watch something true crime on Netflix or A&E (often now on free sites); the killer too often does get so much of the attention.

I will say this: Jordana Brewster’s character was my favorite in the film and I think she is wonderful as Todd’s partner, Kathy, very interested and inspired to focus attention on the victims of the I-90 killer, wanting them to get more of the spotlight, while Todd comes under scrutiny for his gory comics depictions, chock full of grisly flesh and blood. My favorite scene in the film is when Kathy refuses to show fear in the face of certain death as the killer is enraged, attacking her with an advantage she didn’t have. That’s the thing about the killer: he’s always at an advantage as killers and kidnappers are, while his victims never have a chance. The killer shoots victims with guns and when he knifestabs the young man in the passenger seat of his girlfriends’ SUV, it is at night and the tire of the vehicle was flat under a serious rainfall/storm. 

The killer always has the leg up on others except when Kathy fails to drive her car right at him before he fires his machine gun…I still think that scene is what ruins the film for me. I was screaming in my mind at the scream: fucking run him over dipshits!!! If I had a problem with Kathy is was her not hitting the accelerate to obliterate that fucker. On the killer’s temper tantrum before his “picking up where he left off in 1991”, getting his juices flowing, “psyching himself up” as mentioned in another review, I was able to subscribe to the idea that since he hadn’t done that in ten or so years, he needed to get in the frame of psychotic mind. Or that is what the scene seemed to signal to me. 

The ghoulish nature of the kills in the film sort of reminded me of how nasty Ted Bundy got in Florida because he was held in jail and not allowed to kill for a while…the I-90 killer tells Todd he stopped because the comic books “spoke for him”. Once the I-90 killer starts again, he goes overboard since he hadn’t in so long.

The color scheme of the film, Hussain’s work has that distinctive look to it…Cronenberg’s <b>Possessor</b>, shot by Hussain, really has those features. It was hard not to see Kubrick/Alcott and Argento all over the film’s use of color, the movement of camera, the structure of compositions and style. I totally get why some are overwhelmed by it. I did think Baruchel wanted to go big there in order to perhaps disguise any lack of real originality. But obsessive fandom and an attraction to the macabre are worked into the film, especially when Todd is at the table as fans appear with models and dressed in cosplay. I always get an uneasy feeling, though, when the script in horror films comments on how film or fiction could encourage murder and death. Kathy even scolds Todd on what his comics show and say. It felt like a wagging finger at horror fans. 2.5/5