The Nature of the Beast

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Nature of the Beast (European title: Bad Company) is a horror mystery film from 1995 written and directed by Victor Salva. It stars Eric Roberts and Lance Henriksen.

[edit] Plot

The story is set in Southern California. A close-up of a beeper halfway through the film reveals that the action takes place in July 1993.

Jack Powell (Lance Henriksen) is a businessman with a wife and kids who live in San Diego. He's on his way home when he pulls over to the side of the road to check out a crime scene. The sheriff tells him a cut-up body has been found stuffed into the trunk of a Chrysler, and advises him not to stop and "make any new friends." Policemen slam the trunk, revealing a name has been etched across the top: "Hatchet Man."

Further on down the road, Jack comes upon a hitchhiker and keeps on going. At a diner, he runs into the same man, who introduces himself as Adrian (Eric Roberts). Jack apologizes for not stopping and offers to buy Adrian lunch. Their waitress, Patsy (Eliza Roberts), is dubbed "Jingle Bells" by Adrian because of the silver bracelets she wears on one wrist. Patsy talks excitedly about a briefcase full of $1.25 million in mob money that was stolen from a Las Vegas casino the previous day. Jack looks around nervously and slides his briefcase underneath the table. When Adrian gets up to make a move on Patsy in the kitchen, Jack ditches him.

In his car, Jack listens as a radio newscaster (voiced by writer-director Victor Salva) recounts the story of the stolen briefcase and discusses a string of murders in which all the victims have been dismembered. Jack is forced to turn back because a roadblock has been set up to cordon off a chemical spill.

In the middle of the night, Jack wakes up and walks outside his motel room to investigate another crime scene, this one located behind the diner where he and Adrian had lunch that day. He sees a severed arm with silver bracelets placed into a bag and Adrian hiding in the shadows.

At this point in the film, given Jack's behavior in the diner and Adrian's pursuit of Patsy prior to her murder, we're led to believe that Jack stole the briefcase in Vegas and that Adrian is the Hatchet Man. Adrian joins Jack in his motel room and shoots up in the bathroom. This is the first scene in which Adrian discusses his misanthropic views: "People scream evil like a motherfucker, unless it's their own evil. Then, it's cool." When heavy drug use appears to have rendered Adrian unconscious, Jack attempts to leave him again, but his car won't start. Adrian stumbles out of the motel and reveals that he has removed the plugs from Jack's car. He tells Jack not to leave again or he'll call the police.

In the morning, Jack and Adrian take to the road together. At a gas station, they meet a young hippie couple named Gerald (Sasha Jenson) and Dahlia (Ana Gabriel) who are traveling cross-country in a Volkswagen van. Adrian wants to hang out with the hippies, but Jack insists they keep going. They stop at a service station so Jack can have a busted water hose on his car replaced. As Jack deals with the attendant, Adrian browses a pet store called the Creepy Crawly Zoo. The owner, Harliss (Phil Fondacaro), shows Adrian a Gila Monster, which uses its viselike bite to inject deadly poison into the bloodstream. Back in the car, Adrian uses the Gila Monster to reassert his power over Jack before letting it go.

Jack and Adrian spend the night at a campsite, where they once again run into Gerald and Dahlia. Adrian gets high with the young couple while Jack broods outside the VW. When Dahlia says she and Gerald are "family" because they have the same aura, Jack replies, "You don't know what a family is. How could you do the things you do and be a family?" Adrian accuses Jack of trying to scare the hippies off. Later, Jack finds Adrian having sex with Dahlia in the back of the VW while Gerald watches. Jack gets drunk and retires. Adrian shows up later and eggs him on: "Why don't you go to the van, Jack? You know you want to." After Jack and Adrian drive away in the morning, a shot of the VW shows blood smeared down the license plate and the name "Hatchet Man" etched across the back doors.

The following night, Jack and Adrian stay at a secluded cabin that Jack inherited. For the first time we see the money that was stolen from the Vegas casino, which Jack and Adrian use to play poker. Adrian prepares to shoot up again. When Jack lectures him about his "problem," Adrian slaps him around and accuses him of being an alcoholic and a hypocrite. Adrian reveals the full extent of his misanthropy in a long monologue about human nature, saying there's a hole that "rips inside everyone when they suck in their first screaming breath. It's why babies scream, Jack. I've seen men try to fill it with women, with other men, with the good book, with money, power, and everything you can think of on the planet. And you know what finally separates the men from the boys, Jackie Boy? The wisdom, the knowledge of the ages. That hole, it can't be filled... Every dark place in us, every rabid fucking impulse we have is just the nature of the beast." Jack reacts by beating Adrian with his briefcase, taping him to a chair and injecting him with a deadly mixture of alcohol and drugs. Adrian convulses and appears to expire, and Jack buries him in a shallow grave.

Sheriff Gordon (Brion James) and his deputy, Little David (played by Salva regular Tom Tarantini) show up to check on Jack, and over their shoulders Jack can see Adrian rising from the grave. The policemen are called away on a domestic disturbance and leave without noticing Adrian. Jack attempts to gun him down. After he's unloaded his shotgun, Adrian emerges from the shadows. In the film's final twist, Adrian makes Jack an offer: "Tell me why you do it, and I'll tell you how I walked away with all that money from the Pot O' Gold Casino." Jack answers, "People wait their whole lives for someone to come along and take away their misery. For a lucky few, I am that someone." When Adrian asks why he cuts up the bodies, Jack removes a hatchet from his briefcase, says, "For the fuck of it," and kills Adrian off-screen.

The film ends with a satirical jab at suburban complacency. Jack returns home to San Diego and kisses his wife, Carol (Lin Shaye). The paperboy greets him and he replies cheerfully, "Say, hey, Billy." As the film fades to black, a quote from the Book of Jeremiah appears on the screen: "The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it?" This echoes an earlier statement made by Adrian, who said that human beings are essentially unknowable.

[edit] References to Prison

The Nature of the Beast is the first film Salva directed after serving 15 months in the California penal system. He makes some allusions to that experience in his screenplay. Adrian says he's an ex-con, and claims to have spent enough time in prison and church "to know true boredom." He also explains to Jack the meaning of the phrase "dead man walking."

[edit] Gay Subtext

Unlike the outlaw duos in Bonnie and Clyde and True Romance, the fugitives in The Nature of the Beast are both men. Certain elements in the film hint at the possibility of a romantic relationship between the two. When Jack passes Adrian on the road, a singer can be heard on the radio crooning, "Who's that I see sneaking up on me? Sweet misery, my old loverboy." The motel where Jack and Adrian spend the night is called the Pink Motel. After their first meeting with the hippie couple, Dahlia asks Gerald, "Honey, you think they're lovers?" Adrian repeatedly taunts Jack with sexual innuendo, at one point saying, "I'll show you mine, you show me yours."

[edit] External links

• The Nature of the Beast at the Internet Movie Database