When I saw the trailer for In a Violent Nature, the opening shots of a hulking brute with decayed skin, reminded me immediately of Jason Voorhees. I thought it was going to be a new F13. It’s not. But… it is certainly inspired by and/or an homage to those films. Before you get too excited or disappointed (depending on your love/hate for the F13 franchise), know that the trailer makes it clear that this is not a typical slasher. The overall vibe is arthouse. Now that I’ve seen the film, I can confirm. It is a very arthouse slasher. Does that work? Is it good? Is it scary? Let’s get into it, shall we?
The film opens with a close-up of a dilapidated shack wall and empty window frame. In the foreground, we see a gold necklace hanging from a pole. Off screen we hear some folks chatting about some “massacre” that happened around there long ago. One of their number takes the necklace before we hear them leave the shack. The now necklace-free pole begins to shift and wiggle before we get our first cut to an overhead shot of the pole getting displaced by a hulking brute (callback!) emerging from the dirt below. The film then mostly follows the brute – later identified as Johnny – in a 3rd person perspective from behind – much like a videogame (much like Friday the 13th: The Game, in fact). The hulk is looking to retrieve the necklace and he kills anyone who is in his path.
That synopsis is short, but effectively (if i do say so myself) sums up what happens in this mostly dialogue-free story. This slasher film feels like a sandbox videogame. The camera mostly stays on the Johnny character as he walks through woods and along trails from one victim to the next. A few times the perspective shifts to allow other characters to fill in some backstory about the massacre and about Johnny (like cutscenes in a videogame). Johnny joins killers like Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers as another mute, tireless killing machine. He is moving forward in almost every scene, giving him a great white shark quality that is quite unsettling. His sheer bulk alone is intimidating. We get plenty of time to take in his broad, muscular frame and baseball mitt hands. When his stride is broken – often from an off-screen bit of dialogue or noise indicating someone is nearby – the audience knows that someone is about to die. And the kills are brutal, with some very unique ones that end in mutilated, dismembered and/or contorted bodies and extreme gore. It is a blast to watch! There were several scenes that ended with folks in my screening gasping and blurting out expletives. I want to make it very clear that I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It has a lot to offer horror fans in a very unique way. There were a couple of things that didn’t quite land for me though. There is a weird out-of-place flashback at one point just to set up a joke that pays off later. I wanted more from the sound design. For example, most of Johnny’s footsteps sounded nearly identical (super nitpicky, i know). A lot of the acting was subpar and the writing is so cliched that it borders on parody. And the final 10 minutes or so with Lauren-Marie Taylor (from Friday the 13th Part 2!) seem to drag and then fizzle out. Those aren’t dealbreakers though! See In a Violent Nature!
The Final Cut: In a Violent Nature lives up to its name by being set in Canadian woods and being extremely violent. The artistic approach taken by director, Chris Nash, brings a fresh perspective to the slasher subgenre.
No Real Danger 