Random Acts of Violence is like two different movies. On one hand, you have a story about the way we like to fetishize and our cultural fascination with the monster over the victims. It’s also a story about trauma and cycles of abuse and the ways in which we create and consume horrific things to help process that trauma. On the other hand, Random Acts of Violence is a slasher with some of the most brutal and nonchalantly evil acts of violence I’ve seen in a recent film.

It’s a tale of two stories and one of them works a whole lot better than the other.

Based on the graphic novel of the same name by Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti, Random Acts of Violence opens with an appropriately comic book intro focused on a young kid with blood smeared on his face. In dialogue panels couple with voice over narration, we’re there can be no darkness without colour and light and that accidents can’t exist without a design. These words are spoken by Kathy (Jordana Brewster) as she reads the script for the final issue of Slasherman, a comic by her boyfriend Todd (Jesse Williams). Todd is trying to put the finishing touches on his comic series about a real life serial killer who stalked his prey down a 200 mile stretch of I-90. To do so, he and his girlfriend, joined by his business partner Ezra (Jay Baruchel) and assistant Aurora (Niamh Wilson) head on a road trip across I-90 with a stop in Todd’s hometown.

This trip is important to both Todd and Kathy for different reasons. Todd’s freaked out because now that his comic is ending, he wants to prove to critics that it “means something.” That his comic series is about something more than being the biggest selling R-rated comic book series of all time. Kathy, meanwhile, is interested in interviewing people in connection with the real life murders to shine a light on the victims. Her desire is to give voice to those who no longer have a voice. This dichotomy, at least in the beginning, rests at the heart of the film as writers Jay Baruchel and Jesse Chabot utilize two different artistic ways of covering the real life murders.

But as the foursome stop in the small town of McCain, Ezra drops off a load of comics at a creepy gas station and soon someone seems to be taking inspiration from Todd’s comics. In the first incredibly brutal slasher sequence, a trio of friends get stuck on the side of the road when their tire blows, leaving them stuck in a fierce rainstorm. A man dressed in the Slasherman costume pulls up and, after psyching himself up, runs up to their SUV, slams open the door and stabs one of the friends over and over and over and over again. It’s vicious and brutal and unending. Just stab stab stab stab stab over and over. And as the driver tries to get out, he stabs the knife in her thigh so that her propelling out the door causes a brutal gash and we fade out of the sequence with her anguished cries.

It’s brutal.

The next day, as Todd and crew continue their driving, they come across the police barricaded crime scene but an errant gust of wind blows open a tarp and they see the murdered trio, now tied together in a Hannibal-lite tableaux. And while it’s nasty to behold, it’s more troubling to Todd because it’s a perfect recreation of one of the kills in Todd’s Slasherman comics.

Someone seems to be interested in taking art and making it real.

One of the themes Random Acts of Violence seems interest in pursuing is the idea of whether art influences life or just represents it. At one point, a police officer shows Todd and his friends grotesque crime scene pictures and blames the deaths on Todd while Kathy, shaken from the images, says that people are dead “...because of what comes out of your fucked up head.” It’s a theme explored countless times throughout cinema to the point it does feel like the horse is dead now. And if the film rested solely on this question, it’s be a complete failure.

But this doesn’t seem to be the film’s main target. By making Todd and Kathy foils of each other, Random Acts of Violence seems more interested in examining the way we festishize serial killers and monsters. In particular, the aim seems directly pointedly at True Crime.

True Crime is ubiquitous today…you can’t scroll through podcasts without being hit over the head with it. But from podcasts to books to Netflix series and movies to cinematic adaptations of the killers, we have a cultural fascination with serial killers. When Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile came out, for example, everyone focused on how “hot” Ted Bundy was. Todd understands this and it’s one of the reasons he made Slasherman the “hero” of his comic series: “...he went and did something and now people are examining that.” No one cares about the victims because it’s not splashy. They just had something done to them. And while Slasherman isn’t a real killer in our world, in the landscape of Random Acts of Violence he most certainly is. It asks the question by using the fiction of the narrative.

But on top of these examinations, the film also digs into something Wes Craven has famously said: “Horror films don't create fear. They release it.” We’re shown, through a stylized comic book lens, Todd’s trauma at an early age. And as an adult, both Todd and budding artist Aurora talk about releasing their fears and horrors through drawing. Todd calls it “drawing it out,” where he processes his trauma through the art of drawing. But as an interesting turn-of-phrase, “drawing” is also a literal act; to literally pull or drag the darkness out of him. Because make no mistake, Random Acts of Violence also wants to discuss the cycles of trauma and the way art can help us work through our past.

Unfortunately, while these intriguing questions are raised and debated at a few points throughout the first two acts, the script doesn’t seem too interested in exploring what they mean or answering the questions it raises. Random Acts of Violence is, after all, a slasher. And as a slasher, it’s brutal and mean as hell. While it’s building up tension and setting set pieces, the film really buzzes along. While the film raises questions that cut to the core of what horror is and what it means to people, it also drops the ball in the answering department. The questions become set dressing as the film veers into the third act and its slightly goofy climax. They don’t coalesce into something weighty as the film turns its attention to the “who” and the “why” the subgenre necessitates.

Like the dichotomy raised between the two leads and their moral debates about exploring the killer or the victim, Random Acts of Violence can’t decide what it wants to be.

But man is it gnarly, though.