Sometimes a film arrives that is so gloriously strange, so oddly compelling, that you can’t help but wonder if the entire cast was being blackmailed into participating. The Nature of the Beast—also released under alternate titles like Bad Company and Hatchet Man, presumably to trick people into renting it twice—is one of those films. Written and directed by Victor Salva (yes, that Victor Salva), it stars Lance Henriksen as a supposedly mild-mannered businessman and Eric Roberts as a junkie drifter with a smirk permanently glued to his face. What starts as a tense roadside meet-cute morphs into a buddy movie stitched together with hatchets, severed arms, Gila monsters, and biblical quotes.
It’s a mess. A glorious, sweaty, desert-baked mess. And yet, buried beneath all the lunacy, you get something that resembles…entertainment. Let’s dig in.
A Corpse in Every Trunk
We open in Southern California, where Henriksen’s Jack Powell pulls over to rubberneck at a crime scene. A cut-up body has been found in the trunk of a Chrysler, and the local sheriff (played with grizzled authority by Brion James, who always looks like he’s chewing tobacco even when he isn’t) tells him not to make new friends. This advice, of course, Jack will immediately ignore.
Enter Eric Roberts as Adrian—a hitchhiker with greasy hair, darting eyes, and the energy of a man who has snorted both his lunch and his rent money. Jack picks him up at a diner, and before long, Adrian is nicknaming waitresses, flirting, and generally behaving like the human version of a switchblade.
The two men strike up the kind of relationship you only find in mid-’90s direct-to-video thrillers: part toxic bromance, part psychosexual staring contest.
A Briefcase Full of Problems
There’s also a MacGuffin: a briefcase stuffed with stolen casino money. Jack has it, Adrian wants it, and every single person in the film talks about it like they’re auditioning for a low-rent Tarantino spin-off. Of course, Jack insists he’s just a regular suburban dad trying to get home to his wife and kids, but Henriksen plays him with the kind of nervous twitch that makes you wonder if he’s hiding more than just cash in that Samsonite.
Adrian, meanwhile, is less interested in the money than he is in peeling back Jack’s psyche like an onion. “I can tell everything about a man in two minutes,” he boasts, while chewing scenery like it’s his last meal. Roberts is clearly having the time of his life, his performance veering between sleazy charm and outright lunacy. He’s like the Joker, if the Joker also liked heroin and roadside diners.
Detours into Madness
The road trip structure gives the film an excuse to throw in every weird set piece imaginable. Highlights include:
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The Creepy Crawly Zoo: Adrian buys a Gila monster and tosses it into Jack’s lap while he’s driving. Nothing says friendship like reptile-assisted vehicular manslaughter.
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The Hippie Van of Doom: Our duo runs into a couple of free-loving travelers, Dahlia and Gerald. Within hours, Adrian is having sex with Dahlia in the back while Gerald watches. The next morning, the van is decorated with blood and the words Hatchet Man. Hippie road trips rarely end well.
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The Cabin Poker Game: Jack and Adrian bond over stolen millions, but when Jack tries to lecture Adrian about his drug use, Adrian slaps him around like a disappointed life coach. The scene ends with Jack tying him to a chair and injecting him with a lethal cocktail of booze and smack. That’s one way to host an intervention.
The Big Reveal
The film spends most of its runtime teasing us with a simple question: which one of these maniacs is the real Hatchet Man? Adrian fits the profile—unstable, violent, fond of sexual intimidation. But when Henriksen’s Jack finally drops the suburban-dad act and whips out a hatchet with the line, “For the fuck of it,” the truth lands like a blunt instrument.
Turns out Jack is the killer. Adrian’s a drugged-out predator, sure, but Jack is the kind of guy who slices and dices purely for recreational purposes. It’s a twist you probably saw coming, but the sheer glee Henriksen takes in revealing his true nature makes it perversely satisfying.
Roberts vs. Henriksen: The Showdown
The movie works—inasmuch as it works—because of the odd-couple chemistry between its leads. Henriksen plays Jack with quiet intensity, his voice gravelly enough to sand wood. Roberts, on the other hand, is all manic energy, wide-eyed grins, and unpredictable shifts in tone. Together, they’re like oil and fire: toxic, unstable, and guaranteed to stain the carpet.
Watching them snarl at each other in diners, motel rooms, and moonlit campsites is the film’s real pleasure. You almost forget about the murders, the mob money, and the reptilian road hazards. Almost.
Horror by Way of the Highway
For a movie marketed as horror, The Nature of the Beast is oddly light on actual scares. There are some corpses, sure, and a few splashes of blood, but the real terror comes from the idea that you might pick up the wrong hitchhiker and spend the next 90 minutes trapped in a psychological pissing contest.
Victor Salva shoots it all with a kind of sweaty, sun-baked grime. Southern California becomes a purgatory of diners, motels, and gas stations—everywhere looks like it smells faintly of gasoline and regret.
The Ending and the Epilogue
After the final desert duel, Jack goes home to his wife (played by Lin Shaye, who can class up even the cheapest material) and greets the paperboy with a smile. The quote from Jeremiah—“The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it?”—flashes across the screen, just in case you missed the message that human beings are terrible, unknowable beasts. Subtlety, thy name is not Hatchet Man.
Final Thoughts
The Nature of the Beast isn’t high art, but it is high-octane pulp. It’s sleazy, weirdly funny, and powered by two performances that belong in a better movie. Roberts delivers junkie charm with a side of menace, while Henriksen goes from uptight square to grinning psychopath like he was born for it.
Is it good? Not in the traditional sense. But is it entertaining? Absolutely. It’s the kind of direct-to-video relic you’d stumble across on late-night cable, get hooked by, and then feel slightly dirty about the next morning.
Verdict: A bloody, bizarre buddy movie that proves the scariest monsters aren’t robots, vampires, or piranhas—they’re traveling salesmen with briefcases full of cash and a hatchet hidden inside.
