i want to talk about your movie which i
watched last night and i really enjoyed
random acts of violence
this is a real achievement you wrote
this
you directed it you're in it and this is
really this amazing uh vision that
you've brought to life uh
and it is an intense film it's the kind
of movie
that uh provokes a lot of strong
reactions from people
and you say you've been hearing uh
strong reactions on both sides
yeah yeah that's that's and i kind of
set out to do that i
i wanted to make a movie that like you
know for people that
kind of connected to it it would be
something special for them
and but but anything short of that i
wanted you to to
hate it and and question my uh right to
make
it and and and that's what's happened
man it's like
i don't know about you but like when i
see a movie he's got like 40 50
on rotten tomatoes that is infinitely
more compelling to me as a viewer than
one that's like 90
across the board right because 50 means
they did
something and took some chances and and
and and committed
and so oh man what's amazing though is
that like a lot of the like
haters um ended up paying us compliments
like you know
someone calling us uh lurid and uh
humorless and
and cruel and garish and unpleasant and
i mean like man those are all adjectives
i'd take any day of the damn week for a
horror movie man like it would be awful
if everyone was like
ah it was so lovely and and warm and and
i
and i left there feeling better than i
showed up there i was like oh god i
wouldn't
just kill myself right right no one says
that about texas chainsaw massacre or
any of the classics
you know took the whole family all of us
forgot our problems
for an hour and a half yes no i don't
want the marley and me
you know uh lying for my movie one of
the aspects of the movie that i found
really compelling is that
it's about someone who
uh i want to use the correct term it's
not really a comic book
the the the main character you'd call it
more a gre he's a graphic artist
graphic novelist and he's uh written
these com
these books about uh that
you know are really about the horror
genre and
it is a horror movie but the main theme
of it
is about whether it's okay to exploit
violence and horror and it had me um
like all of us kind of sometimes getting
into the violence
and then at the same time you're asking
the question that they're asking the
protagonist
you're profiting off this and it's this
i don't know i thought was a very it was
sort of a good mind puzzle
thank you that it was it was sort of you
know my writing partner jesse and i kind
of
unpacking our fascinations if that makes
sense you know
big horror fan big true crime fan and
and i noticed
something which is that i couldn't name
any of the kids that
uh that michael myers or freddie or
jason kill
with the exception of maybe like you
know the main characters but for the
most part i couldn't leave any of the
kids they off
and then i also kind of realized that
like the same way i could name
dahmer gacy bundy the zodiac
richard ramirez all these and i could
and i could list off all their stats
like they were athletes
but again i couldn't name a single
person that they had murdered
yeah and and that didn't quite sit well
with me
and so the the kind of meditation of me
trying to unpack some of that
stuff is is kind of what makes up the
dna of random acts of violence
yes it's really well done we have a clip
here this is a clip that is
um that you selected i actually love
this scene because the location is so
eerie
but you guys and i know that you picked
this because there's no spoilers in it
but uh you uh the protagonist is the
um graphic uh graphic novelist
and you are his kind of manager and you
guys are on this road trip to go down to
comic-con
and you've stopped off and you've gone
into
this really freaking weird like it's not
a 7-11
it's it's kind of posing as a 7-eleven
but it's
it's it's one of those places that maybe
even doesn't exist anymore if it does
exist it exists
way off the main drag correct correct
yeah the
the world's crappiest gas station all
right let's take a look at this clip
from random acts of violence
odd bird isn't he holy
i didn't know places like this still
existed
what do they even sell here uh pickled
eggs
yeah but i mean i meant let me rephrase
that what do people actually buy from
here in the last
nothing apparently um is any of this
uh getting your creative juices flowing
you know
give it a rest this could be the scene
of a massacre final issue
starting to get into your head now
no it's my job it's coming all right
that's the whole point of me designing
you know the
road trip all right just like tingle
stimulate some
inspiration final issue inspiration is
the objective
or conversely it doesn't have to be the
last issue but
it's the lat we've talked about it man
i'm i can't it's not healthy
you know you don't have to wake up and
cold sweat whatever it takes i wish i
wanted to eat some of this food so i
could make you
pay for it no no no none of this is
edible um
oh my god look at this thing
janked what is this supposed to be
looks to me like just a sold out rack of
slasher man are you thinking what i'm
thinking
you know i'm thinking what you're
thinking buddy it's time for a refill
right it is we got a trunk full of them
or we could maybe do that the next town
over
is this kind of it's a little bit much
for them no
mcbain and mcbain where was that by the
way
that i think is slightly outside of a
small town called bethany ontario which
is itself maybe a thousand people or
something so
yes so everything was like within an
hour and a half two hours
uh um outside of ontario so like yeah
the
the they are scent of some highway off
ramp
yeah well i'm never going there
[Laughter]
hopefully me neither hopefully because
that really looked like an unpleasant
place
you