Review: Incredible Violence

Director: G. Patrick Condon

Screenplay: G. Patrick Condon

Year: 2019

With a title like "Incredible Violence", the least you can expect is plenty of violence. In this, the movie doesn't disappoint and makes it clear early on that this will be the center of the plot. Although it takes its time to show up, a turn of events takes the plot from moderately funny and mysterious to completely brutal. 

In "Incredible Violence" a director prepares a horror movie. After spending the money given to him for this movie, he decides to create a different scenario, locking his cast inside a house and forcing them to act the script he sends to them part by part. The tension starts rising while the scenes start ramping up the intensity.

Grace, interpreted by M. J. Kheller ("Red Hollow"), is a newbie actress who manages to get a role in a new horror movie. During the first scenes, there is some exposition about Grace’s personal life, shared with a same-sex couple, who is also an actress and who minimizes her accomplishment. Here we see Grace’s different aspirations and motivations and her expectations with this new opportunity, without knowing what was next for her.

Once she reaches the house, she meets the rest of the actors and an uneasy feeling sinks in. Meta references about horror tropes emerge, as cheap jump scares, which continue throughout the rest of the movie. The director and screenwriter G. Patrick Condon in his first full-length movie, and before you think of a joke about his last name he already takes care of it in the movie, includes plenty of references to the lives of filmmakers and the filmmaking process, something fans of movies and its creation will certainly enjoy. 

The plot slowly builds up on intensity until the confrontations among the actors become violent, which is underlined by the directions of an absent director that only shows himself to wreak havoc in a rather incompetent way. Most of the confrontations and their most critical moments take place off-screen, something that usually happens with tight budget movies, but that inevitably harms its quality. Still, the movie keeps its intensity by virtue of its good rhythm and good acting. 

“Incredible Violence” gets into the process of moviemaking and gives it a sinister twist. There are some plot holes in its simplistic story, characters that are not well developed and incoherent decisions in the script, but in general, the plot is interesting and intense. Because of practical limitations, it is unable to visually give that incredible violence it offers and is left as suggested, easying the viewing of those with soft stomachs.