VIOLENCE GIVES HIM HOPE (2016) (FILM GUTTER REVIEWS)

Dir. Harry Kroenlien, 81 mins

It’s no secret that I love originality and creativity, and I also love ambition in low-budget film-making. Violence Gives Him Hope has plenty of all of those things, and though it doesn’t always hit its marks there was enough here to keep me watching

That sounds like a fun title, right? And honestly before I hit play that was absolutely all I knew about it – the description seemed to pitch is as a horror/black comedy, so sounded like it could be entertaining territory at least. In my experience it’s sometimes the case that these ‘sight unseen’ movies that produce the best results, so how would Violence Gives Him Hope stack up?

VGHH is presented as a sort of mock-arthouse piece, broken up into acts and chapters, with many of said chapters being incredibly short (literally a few minutes in some cases). It’s also shot in black and white – for the most part anyway – which adds to that sense of it poking fun at certain other movies that take on this style. The beginning of the movie follows Herman, a serial killer who is converted by a visiting Jehovah’s Witness to that cause – but sadly the stress and frustration of constantly having the door slammed in his face drives him back to his mass-murdering ways. This then loosely connects to the story of ‘Bone Man’, who is our main character for the majority of the movie. He’s an aspiring talk show host, particularly notable for the skeleton mask that he wears at all times. But things start to go pear-shaped for the Bone Man when he finds a dead body in the trunk of his car, as well as when he invites ‘Time Travel Bill’ onto his show. After that, he decides to get out of the cable access game and decides to work for the mafia and in particular his good friend Handsome Riggs…

Sounds odd? Well it is rather, and it’s hard for me to describe it in a way that isn’t. And I had to leave some stuff out above too. The movie beyond the point I described above sort of descends into a big old shoot out, which to me was less enjoyable than what came before it. In doing a bit more research into VGHH, I found out that movie was basically unscripted and filmed over a number of years – and it wasn’t a big surprise either. There were scenes and moments here that I really liked, but this film is really chaotic and the plot is prone to going off in very unexpected directions. It also seems to veer in style a lot too – the early running of the story is very heavily narrated (which I didn’t mind at all) before moving away from that for an awful lot, or trading the third person narrator for first person style. Sometimes the visual choices were a bit jarring, although of course I do fully appreciate some of those might have been due to the very low budget of the movie – around $2500 apparently. It’s extremely commendable to make a film for that sort of money, let alone something virtually feature length, so while I do tip my hat I can’t say I loved all of this one.

My overall suspicion is that you could have been improved by a few judicious cuts here and there, and maybe toning things down in places. But there were some laughs throughout, and some really interesting concepts to boot, so it certainly did what it said on the tin for me. It’s not an unmissable offering, but it remains worth checking out if you have the time and you like truly weird and wonderful dark comedy.

RATING: 6.5/10. It’s no secret that I love originality and creativity, and I also love ambition in low-budget film-making. Violence Gives Him Hope has plenty of all of those things, and though it doesn’t always hit its marks there was enough here to keep me watching and to leave me going away feeling as though I’d had a good time. It’s a surreal cast of characters embarking on a story that doesn’t always entirely hang together, all shot like an arthouse movie but with a tone and pace that sometimes flies in the face of that tradition. You can watch the movie for free on YouTube via Skyburner Films themselves at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TPjkFP-YX0, and if you like it you can get a hold of the movie on DVD to support them.

FILM GUTTER LIVE comes your way this November! Join us for our first line, online talk on the 3rd November, where I’ll be looking at THE TOP TEN EXTREME HORROR MOVIES! Find out more at https://filmgutterlive.blogspot.com/