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Random Acts of Violence, 2019
Todd (Jesse Williams) is the writer-illustrator of a successful series of comics based on a real serial killer who was active when Todd was a child. Fretting over how to find an appropriate ending to his work, Todd and his friends find themselves being stalked by a mysterious figure. Is this someone who has taken their fandom of Todd’s work too far, or could this person be related to the original killer?
This horror-thriller raises some interesting questions about the ethics of true-crime content and the focus on victims versus perpetrators, but never quite interrogates those questions with enough zeal.
While overall this film didn’t rise above somewhat typical slasher stuff, there was one exchange that I thought was pretty great. Todd is arguing with his girlfriend, Kathy (Jordana Brewster), about his choice to make the killer the protagonist of his series. Kathy has a side project of her own where she is collecting stories about the victims of the killer. As the argument heats up, Todd finally asserts, “People care about people who do things, not people that things happen to.” It’s a frank justification for the fascination--and even borderline hero-worship--of people who commit terrible violence against others. As we start to learn more about Todd’s own past, his fascination with such violence takes on a different dimension.
But even as the movie tries to confront some of these cultural issues, it only does so in fits and starts. In many other respects, it tries to have its cake and eat it, too. The murders committed by the killer--both in the comic books and in reality--are salacious, like two young women and a young man who are killed and sewn/lashed together into a “triptych.” The killings are incredibly outlandish and the film itself revels in the fear of the victims and the horror of the violence. The opposing dynamics of raising ethical questions and then flaunting those ethics is certainly a choice.
Like a lot of horror films, this one withholds information about characters and their pasts in order to save up for a big twist at the end. A twist has to be very strong to be worth such contortions, and unfortunately the one in this film is merely okay, and also pretty predictable. And of course the side effect is that we are held at arm’s length from the main characters and the killer, to the point that it’s hard to know exactly how we’re meant to feel about any of them.
The concepts here are worthy of a horror film, but the exploration of those concepts ends up being disappointingly superficial.
Random Acts of Violence, 2019
Todd (Jesse Williams) is the writer-illustrator of a successful series of comics based on a real serial killer who was active when Todd was a child. Fretting over how to find an appropriate ending to his work, Todd and his friends find themselves being stalked by a mysterious figure. Is this someone who has taken their fandom of Todd’s work too far, or could this person be related to the original killer?
This horror-thriller raises some interesting questions about the ethics of true-crime content and the focus on victims versus perpetrators, but never quite interrogates those questions with enough zeal.
While overall this film didn’t rise above somewhat typical slasher stuff, there was one exchange that I thought was pretty great. Todd is arguing with his girlfriend, Kathy (Jordana Brewster), about his choice to make the killer the protagonist of his series. Kathy has a side project of her own where she is collecting stories about the victims of the killer. As the argument heats up, Todd finally asserts, “People care about people who do things, not people that things happen to.” It’s a frank justification for the fascination--and even borderline hero-worship--of people who commit terrible violence against others. As we start to learn more about Todd’s own past, his fascination with such violence takes on a different dimension.
But even as the movie tries to confront some of these cultural issues, it only does so in fits and starts. In many other respects, it tries to have its cake and eat it, too. The murders committed by the killer--both in the comic books and in reality--are salacious, like two young women and a young man who are killed and sewn/lashed together into a “triptych.” The killings are incredibly outlandish and the film itself revels in the fear of the victims and the horror of the violence. The opposing dynamics of raising ethical questions and then flaunting those ethics is certainly a choice.
Like a lot of horror films, this one withholds information about characters and their pasts in order to save up for a big twist at the end. A twist has to be very strong to be worth such contortions, and unfortunately the one in this film is merely okay, and also pretty predictable. And of course the side effect is that we are held at arm’s length from the main characters and the killer, to the point that it’s hard to know exactly how we’re meant to feel about any of them.
The concepts here are worthy of a horror film, but the exploration of those concepts ends up being disappointingly superficial.