Poster Unveiled for Jay Baruchel’s Horror Film Random Acts of Violence

Actor Jay Baruchel has been winning over audiences for years, whether that be in his earliest scene-stealing roles in projects like Almost Famous or Million Dollar Baby, starring turns in hilarious comedies like This Is the End and Tropic Thunder, or even voicing Hiccup in the How to Train Your Dragon franchise, with his latest project, the slasher Random Acts of Violence, earning an all-new poster. The horror film sees Baruchel pulling triple duty, as he not only stars in the feature, but also co-wrote the adaptation of the comic book of the same name from Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray, in addition to having served as the director. Check out the film’s poster below before it debuts this summer.

In the film, “Todd Walkley (Jesse Williams) and his publisher Ezra (Baruchel) made their careers crafting a comic book based on a real-life serial killer called Slasherman. On a press tour to announce the launch of their final issue, they visit the town where Slasherman wreaked havoc twenty years earlier. Upon their arrival, a series of new murders unfold… murders that look eerily familiar to imagery in Todd’s Slasherman comics. Speculation and paranoia build regarding the identity of the mysterious killer.”

Jordana Brewster and Niamh Wilson also star in the film.

More than merely being a straightforward horror film, Baruchel previously detailed how the project tackles a number of different themes.

“I think it scratches a bunch of different itches,” Baruchel shared with Variety about the picture last fall. “For the people who want a good horror flick with some good scares, I think we do that. But to me, it’s a horror story about the creative process, about what can happen when an artist has his head all the way up his arse and to the detriment of his or her immediate orbit. Watch any rock documentary or read any rock biography — these are all guys that are important to the world but nine times out of 10, really crappy to the people they’re close with.”

He added, “We [also] had some pretty strong opinions about the trivialization of violence against women. This is not to say that you can’t show said thing, but you can’t show said thing in a trivial way where people are high-fiving each other. We realized something: None of us could name a single character in any of the ‘Jason’ movies other than Jason. There’s the guy with red hair, the guy with freckles, or the super horny one or whatever, but I couldn’t name any of the characters. I couldn’t really describe anything about them. It tells me that none of them are the hero, that Jason’s the hero [and] what it boils down to is various sadism. I had questions, and I was interested in the totality, the effect of that and the responsibility of that.”

Stay tuned for details on Random Acts of Violence.

Are you looking forward to the new film? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!