Matty dissects a compelling thriller with a deeply troubling backstory. Trigger warning: child sexual abuse. 

Two men.

One is a thief responsible for nabbing a cool $1million from a casino.

The other is a serial killer — the ‘Hatchet Man’ of the U.K. title — chopping his way across the desert. 

Sussing out who’s who is the thrust of THE NATURE OF THE BEAST (1995); a taut thriller anchored by a pair of excellent performances. 

Cast against type in the sort of parts each other would usually play (their roles could be reversed and it would still work), Lance Henriksen — a stressed paper salesman travelling cross-country — and Eric Roberts — a charismatic hitcher thumbing down the highways — sink their teeth into the see-sawing script, ratcheting up the tension as they trade verbal blows, trying to get one another to show their true colours. Though essentially a two-hander, the likes of Frank Novak, Phil Fondacaro, and Brion James all appear and add a splash of colour. 

Enhancing the suspense and mystery are The Nature of the Beast’s hearty tech credentials. Half neo-noir, half pulp horror, the film is robustly shot by Levie Isaaks and rhythmically cut by Peter Miller. Sadly, their stellar contributions — and those of Henriksen, Roberts, and virtually everyone else involved — are tough to enjoy.

Ditto the film itself.  

On Tuesday 27th September 1988, Victor Salva was sentenced to three years in prison after sexually abusing Nathan Forrest Winters, the twelve year-old star of the writer/director’s debut feature, Clownhouse (1989).

The Nature of the Beast was Salva’s first film following his release.

His ‘return’, if you will. 

With Salva, separating the art and the artist is impossible, and The Nature of the Beast joins the helmer’s Jeepers Creepers trilogy as a flagrant wallow in his own perversions. As Salva himself once stated, the very genesis of the picture was inspired by his time behind bars (a shockingly short fifteen months, for the record). Meanwhile, its core theme of a secret evildoer paranoid about being discovered reeks of the filmmaker working through his guilt and apprehensions; and Henriksen and Roberts’ homoerotic interplay veers perilously close to conflating queerness with latent depravity – a tactic often used by homophobes and paedophiles with roughly equal measure. ‘Think of the children’ indeed. 

Given the surprising lack of coverage Salva’s crimes received until late ‘95, the making of The Nature of the Beast passed without incident. Later, when the shit smashed into the fan just prior to the release of Salva’s third flick – disturbing paedo-apologist fantasy Powder (1995) – Roberts was quick to stress that he wasn’t aware of the filmmaker’s sordid history and would have bailed on The Nature of the Beast if he had been. Henriksen and the film’s producers, Daniel Grodnik and Robert Snukal, knew about Salva and reunited with him for the aforementioned Powder — a project that, incredibly, Disney helped bankroll. 

The Nature of the Beast was released straight-to-video in the U.S. by New Line on 24th October 1995; the same day Salva’s predilections entered mainstream consciousness, when news of Disney’s involvement with a convicted child molester hit the headlines thanks to Winters and his family picketing a screening of Powder [1]. Amidst the scandal, New Line’s then head of home video acquisitions, Ruth Vitale, firmly asserted that, yes, they were familiar with Salva’s past; that Salva was upfront and honest about it; and that nothing improper happened during The Nature of the Beast’s production. 

“We have a criminal system in this country that when you commit a crime, are sentenced, and you serve your time, you shouldn’t have to live with that crime hanging over your head,” said Vitale, failing to read the room. “At some point in our lives, forgiveness is something all of us should learn.” [2] 

Maybe so.

But, per another of The Nature of the Beast’s alternative monikers, Salva is ‘Bad Company’. 

[1] The film was released in the U.K. as the previously noted ‘Hatchet Man’ on 8th May 1996 via Columbia/TriStar.
[2] New Salvos Over Salva, Variety, 29th October 1995.