Killers by Nature (2005)

December 21, 2005

by Nathan Shumate

Written, produced and directed by Eric Spudic
Starring
- Eric Spudic
- Jason Contini
- William Clifton
- Nick Hearne
- Rory Stumpf
Executive produced by Ron Bonk and Eric Stanze

Like every other starry-eyed idealist with visions of making the world a celestial realm of rainbows and fuzzy puppies, I have my moments of self-doubt and dark despondency, when I question whether the superhuman efforts I make on behalf of Truth, Justice, and the American way really yield any fruit worth mentioning. If my entire sprawling set of movie reviews has any cohesive purpose, it’s to send a message to the filmmakers of the world:

DON’T MAKE MOVIES THAT SUCK.

A simple message, yes, but sublime in its simplicity. And yet, it seems to fall of deaf ears. Filmmakers keep on making movies that suck. Not as an avowed goal, I’m sure (unless the filmmakers in question are associated with Troma); it just seems that the entire consideration of whether any given project does indeed suck never flashes up on their artistic radar. It doesn’t enter into their cinematic calculus. I can imagine sitting down with directors and producers responsible for some of these movies that simply fail to entertain in any way, and asking them, “Did you really believe that anyone would enjoy this movie? At all?” I can also imagine their eyes widening for a moment in panic, as a concept wholly alien to their mindsets is thrust upon their psyches; their eyes would then glaze into that comfortable and willful incomprehension which defends the mind against paradigm-shattering awarenesses. Either that, or they’d slump over stiffly like the androids in the original Star Trek episode “I, Mudd” when confronted by something that Just Wouldn’t Compute.

And thus the script was decanted.

Which brings me, rather unfairly, to Eric Spudic. Eric (or “Spud” as I’m sure his friends call him, since the temptation would be irresistible) is a young buck, an energetic B-movie aficionado in his mind-twenties who has thrown incredible energy and enthusiasm into a career in low-budget horror and sci-fi. He’s written and eight scripts produced as shot-on-video genre fare (of which I have previously reviewed Maniacal (2003) and Aquanoids (2003); right now, he works for B-movie maestro Fred Olen Ray. I’ve bumped into him around the genre-specific messageboards, and he seems to be a genuinely nice guy who does what he does because it’s what he loves.

Nevertheless. He is also the writer-director-star (first time in the director’s chair) of Killers by Nature, a microbudget feature which, I contend, would not exist if the consideration of whether any audience would enjoy watching it had ever entered into the equation. He made a movie that sucks.

Unless, of course, what you’re looking for is a movie which opens with Eric Spudic masturbating to cheap porn while eating a sandwich. Then you’re in luck. Spudic plays Jeff, a recent high school graduate with no prospects, no ambition, and no discernable personality. He just sits around in his wood-paneled basement, spreading out his porno mags all over the place so he can panic when he thinks his parents are coming home early (as he helpfully says with no one else present for the audience’s benefit, “Oh shit! I can’t let my parents see all this porn!”). The only high point of his existence seems to be when fellow graduate Cory (Jason Contini) comes over with a twelve-pack to split, one hour before Jeff’s folks get home. Truly, we’re dealing with the best minds of a generation.

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In between talking about their complete lack of direction or purposeful employment, Jeff and Cory start reminiscing about all the people who treated them badly in high school. After six beers apiece, it starts to seem like a good idea to harmlessly terrorize those miscreants, so they load up with crossbows and winter hunting masks and head out to play mindgames with big bully Nick (Nick Hearne), a hapless tub of lard who spends his time sitting in yet another wood-paneled basement, looking at porn. As you can see, everything happens within a very tight demographic, though Nick differentiates himself by sucking on a water bong instead of beer-bingeing in mid-afternoon. If there’s any remaining respect for our two protagonists — you know, those talentless and ambitionless characters who’ve decided to bring victimhood status to white suburbia — it’s that they could be terrorized in high school by someone like this.

They show up at Nick’s house and do a piss-poor job of victimizing him, though he does obligingly pee his pants for them; then they accidentally shoot him in the neck with the crossbow. Oops. They stand around, thinking about the magnitude of what they’ve done, or something. Me, I was sitting around trying hard not to associate this scene with the similar but far better scene in Heathers (1989); don’t want to besmirch the memory of one of my favorite teen angst flicks by association with this one.

“You guys do realize, this TOTALLY justifies how I treated you in high school.”

They decide to haul Nick’s corpse home until they can decide what to do with it, when the other big bully happens by — Benicio (Rory Stumpf), a scrawny kid on a bike whose habitual transgression is egging things and people. That’s right, this is Bully #2. I’m half-expecting the next great antagonist of their high school years to be a lame budgie in mid-molt.

So what the hey, they chase Benicio down into the woods and kill him. Cory, who’s the designated “slightly creepy and given to violence” guy, starts to think that maybe they’re “killers by nature,” since they’re so obviously talented at it. (I guess maybe in comparison to any other life skills they’ve displayed so far, but…) Jeff, who is the designated “I’m conflicted, no I’m not, I’m just poorly written” guy, is like, well, whatever.

So they go after some other people on their list, with drawn-out “tormenting” scenes which are, I think, meant to showcase their lack of remorse, but which only showcase their truly nonscary performances; the only menace they exude is that derived from the realization that these boneheads have edged weapons in their hands.

Bah. Kills like a mad dog, cleans like a pansy.

And when we’ve finally filled enough screentime to barely qualify as a feature-length film, the boys get upset with each other over one of the victims and have a kung-fu fight with their murder weapon collection, which involves chasing each other around and around a tree. The end.

The challenge in a movie like this isn’t to delineate everything that was bad (well, it’d be a challenge of endurance for both you and me), but to find anything that was good. Even goodish. Well, Jason Contini’s performance as Cory was better than the script, though that’s not much of a compliment. And the “chortlingly crazy guy” isn’t exactly a stunning and demanding role. But we’re finding the silver linings where we can.

Other than that, no. The whole thing’s a home movie, from the camera work and sound quality, to the thudding industrial and hellbilly soundtrack, to the utter inability to craft a narrative that has anything to offer the viewer.

“Hm! Your Suck Fu is almost as mighty as mine!”

You may be wondering if I’m ever going to bring up the obvious (blatant, even) correspondences with the Columbine shootings. I waited this long largely because I wanted my main criticisms to be on the merits of the movie itself; I didn’t want the entire review to be an indictment of this movie for drawing so much of its imagery from Columbine while failing wholly to produce anything of worth. But now that the subject’s come up, we’ve been given a movie wherein Columbine is referenced almost incessantly yet nothing is ever said. Columbine was a wake-up call about the soul of the American teen, both tormentor and tormented; this movie, by contrast, offers no characterization that rises above the level of “There’s, like, this guy, see.” Killers by Nature neither explores nor effectively exploits the deep emotions motivating and raised by the Columbine shootings; instead, it just shows us a couple of dumb guys killing people.