Written and directed by Jay Baruchel with writing help by Jesse Chabot
Starring Jesse Williams, Jordana Brewster and Jay Baruchel
Running time: 1 hour and 25 minutes

by Nikk Nelson

I’ve always rooted for Jay Baruchel. The other day, re-watching Are You Afraid of the Dark (TV), I actually recognized him as a kid in the episode “Dead Man’s Float” from 1995 because I am a cinema freak of nature. He’s been steadily working that long. Sixty-four acting credits, including one of his latest efforts, Random Acts of Violence (2019), where Jay also served as director, co-writer and producer. This is his second directed feature, the first being Goon: Last of the Enforcers (2017), which I have not yet seen, but I remember liking the original. Horror doesn’t run much through his filmography save for the kid’s show and Just Buried (2007) so I was excited to see what he could do at the helm of the genre in a good ol’ piece of canucksploitation. One last Baruchel plug, I think everyone should see Man Seeking Woman (TV).

Random Acts of Violence (2019) follows Todd, played by Jesse Williams [who I know best from Cabin in the Woods (2011) and Grey’s Anatomy (TV)], a comic book creator suffering from an intense case of writer’s block as he tries to close out his series, Slasherman—a comic following the extremely homicidal adventures of a serial killer. Rounding out the cast is Baruchel himself, Jordana Brewster, who I fell in love with in high school watching The Faculty (1998), Degrassi (TV) alum Niamh Wilson, and actor/prolific stuntman Simon Northwood. Todd decides that a road trip is the ticket to inspiration and so he and his three friends pile into a sedan and head toward Todd’s hometown, I think? And herein lies one of the only major issues I had with the film. The plot, especially the motivations of the characters, I found to be quite murky, as they often are in horror movies, because why are we here? Carnage. Blood. Gore—Gimme. And the film gives us plenty as Todd’s comic book essentially comes to life and a masked killer starts offing commuters in gloriously gory tableaus inspired by Slasherman.

The strengths of the movie lie mostly in how it's shot. The violence is intense and percussive. The scenes you can tell were given extra special attention are beautiful. They have a real tangible sense of lighting, shadow and color. It’s well worth the price of admission. The rest of the film, getting us to those scenes, however, suffers from here we go again syndrome. I see this especially in horror movies and my fatigue from it, unfortunately, really took me out of the total experience. Of course, there’s a scene at a crummy gas station with a creepy attendant. Of course, more than once it’s painfully obvious the characters have choices other than getting hacked to pieces. E.g. a vehicle can still drive with a flat tire for a long time. If a knife-wielding maniac is after you, rims be damned—the sparks coming down the highway will be a nice signal flare for law enforcement. Someone more talented than me needs to put together a supercut of actors in horror movies staring wide-eyed and screaming, “Oh, fuck!” I bet it’ll be feature length. Things like this, I was utterly disappointed to see.

However, as a whole, I think this will make a great addition to Shudder’s lineup. It clocks in at a quick 85 minutes, the soundtrack includes one of my favorite bands The Twilight Sad, and there’s more than enough here to hold your attention. The animated sequences are superb and the comic book in the movie was done by industry powerhouse Jimmy Palmiotti. At its core, it seems to be a film that’s trying to explore the cyclical nature of trauma and violence—violence begets trauma—trauma begets violence—with art somewhere in the middle of that relationship, but it never really pulls it off. Jesse Williams doesn’t quite carry the emotional stakes and you have to wonder how much of that was due to the direction. Despite its flaws, it’s undeniable that Jay Baruchel has a unique voice and vision behind the camera and I truly believe that more experience will yield a clearer expression of that talent.

See for yourself on Shudder, starting August 20th.

Hear Nikk Nelson on episode 007 of I Saw it in a Movie, MJ’s advice pod that goes to the movies for the answer. Available here. — *Hear Nikk Nelson on episode 007 of I Saw it in a Movie, MJ’s advice pod that goes to the movies for the answer. Available* *here*.