Let’s face it. Slasher movies are formulaic. Even when they’re parodied, ripped-off, satirized, or re-invented, they still follow the same general guidelines. Still, there’s a pretty good chance that you’ve never seen a slasher quite like In a Violent Nature.
In a Violent Nature begins with some young people exploring an old burned-out fire post in the woods. One of them takes a gold necklace that they find there, which allows a long-dead killer named Johnny (Cult Hero’s Ry Barrett) to rise from his grave and torment the youngsters.
Yeah, that’s In a Violent Nature in a nutshell. It does follow the slasher formula and adheres to all of the stereotypes and tropes that go along with it, including the group of oversexed campers and the undead, seemingly unstoppable psycho killer who goes after them. Johnny’s origin story is even exposed via a campfire tale that’s right out of a Friday the 13th movie. In fact, the whole movie feels like a lost Friday the 13th movie, or maybe one of those mid-eighties imitations like The Final Terror or The Burning.
Where writer/director Chris Nash (who did the Z is for Zygote segment of ABCs of Death 2) forges new ground is in his approach to the slasher genre, or more specifically, in his perspective. In a Violent Nature is shown from the point of view of the killer, Johnny. The camera, and thus the audience, follows Johnny as he works his way through the woods and through the campers, showing his stalking and slicing of each individual member of the group. Any exposition that is delivered has to be put together by the viewer from bits and pieces that Johnny overhears or eavesdrops.
There’s still plenty of mythology behind Johnny, and Nash finds creative (if sometimes heavy-handed) ways to explain his killer’s backstory. Sometimes it’s a vision of Johnny’s father in a mirror, and sometimes it’s him listening to his victims arguing, but a surprising amount of information is provided about who Johnny is and where he comes from, considering the character never says a single word of dialogue himself.
So, it seems as if Chris Nash both reinforces and subverts the slasher genre with In a Violent Nature.
As is the case in any slasher movie worth its salt, the kills in In a Violent Nature are gruesome, visceral, and brutal. Almost overly so in a couple of places. Chris Nash is also a special effects guy whose credits include Astron-6’s Psycho Goreman, so the blood and guts flow freely. A couple of the murders almost have the audience crying “uncle,” going on and on sort of like the bear scene in The Revenant or the assault scene in I Spit on Your Grave. But Johnny doesn’t do what he does just to kill; he needs to get it all out of his system, and if that means continuing long after his victims are actually dead, well, who’s going to tell him no?
Despite the over-the-top kills and the supernatural element to the villain, there’s a stark realism to In a Violent Nature. The long, drawn-out one-take shots coupled with the complete absence of any musical score creates a voyeuristic sensation, as if the audience is along for a ride that will not stop until it reaches its inevitable conclusion no matter how badly that audience wants to get off. This gritty aesthetic only makes In a Violent Nature all the more disturbing. It’s not traditionally, jump-out-of-your-seat scary. It’s follow-you-home-and-hide-under-your-bed scary.
In a Violent Nature is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. Portions of it move slowly since the story follows Johnny, and when he’s not killing, he’s just making his way around the woods. But, if you’ve ever wondered what a slasher killer does when they aren’t slashing and killing, here’s your chance to find out. It could be said that Chris Nash’s genre-defying exercise in slow-burn bloodshed is the future of the slasher movie, except that any other movie that follows the same pattern would just be a rip-off. Nash has both created and destroyed his own subgenre of horror. In a Violent Nature is in a category by itself.
GRADE: A-
Release Date: May 31, 2024
Running Time: 94 minutes
Studio: IFC Films
The post ‘In a Violent Nature’ Review appeared first on ShowbizJunkies.
0 Comments