In A Violent Nature (Recommendation)
One of the highlights of the horror genre is there is so much room for experimentation. Sometimes that can be mashing genres (horror comedies, anthologies), playing around with rules (Wes Craven’s Scream), or changing the perspective (found footage). Plenty of creativity has been poured into horror throughout the years, and yet it is still a treat to find something that manages to try something new, even if it doesn’t always click.
The sub-genre that hasn’t changed a whole lot? The slasher. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying this as a negative. Slashers kind of feel like Ol’ Reliable to me. You can always have fun with them, even if they do feel repetitive. Just look at Friday the 13th, Halloween, and so on. These franchises are still churning out movies (or trying to get them off the ground). If you’re in the mood for fun horror, and crazy ass kills, you don’t have to look very far. Do they all kind of run altogether? Sure, but that’s the fun of them.
In A Violent Nature, which appropriately just dropped on Shudder today, Friday the 13th, aims to stand out in that large slasher crowd. I caught it earlier in the year thanks to Braden sharing a screener with me, and I think it absolutely does achieve that, even if not everything works. This could almost be a part of a Friday the 13th marathon, if you are in for something that gives you a new perspective, yet still deliver the brutal violence you want from a slasher film.
The plot is pretty straight forward. Two boys are checking out an old, abandoned fire tower somewhere in the woods (of course), when one of them comes across a gold locket. In pure slasher movie logic, they decide to take it and leave, not knowing that the locket belongs to Johnny, an undead corpse (basically whatever Jason Voorhees is). Johnny awakens and immediately (although, not quickly) tries to get his locket back, leading him to, you guessed, a group of teens hanging out in a cabin in the woods.
Obviously, what makes In a Violent Nature stand out is not its plot, but its perspective. Rather than us sticking with the teens, the movie is shot almost entirely from the perspective of our slasher Johnny. That means we follow him the whole way, slowly walking through the woods and picking off his victims one by one. There are a few times here and there that we move away from his perspective, but for the most part, we are following our monster’s slow pursuit the entire runtime. There is no score driving the movie forward. You are largely listening to sounds of nature, occupied by Johnny’s loud, thudding footsteps. It’s super unique, something I’ve personally never seen before in a horror movie.
This is what it going to make or break the movie for people. Very early on you realize you are not watching a typical slasher. And because we are following the killer the entire time, who is completely silent by the way, the movie has a pretty slow pace. Your patience is absolutely going to be tested, and I completely understand why this movie was so divisive.
For me personally, it actually really worked. I definitely had moments where the movie was testing my patience, but for the most part, I was locked in to the mood and atmosphere In a Violent Nature presented. It’s not like this idea wasn’t tossed around before. Horror games like Friday the 13th or Dead by Daylight whole idea is making you play the killer. But seeing it unfold in the movie was, honestly, pretty awesome. At times, it’s almost relaxing, like slasher ASMR. Other times, it actually really added to the tension. Watching Johnny slowly get to the doom of these characters made it feel like you were watching some kind of fucked up nature documentary. Sure, the locket is the inciting incident for Johnny, but it still feels so cold the way he disposes of these characters so brutally and with no feeling. It’s the closest I feel we’ve gotten to John Carpenter’s original Halloween since DGG tried it with his own Halloween trilogy in that there is not much reasoning behind the killer’s motives. Adding to that is that we don’t really learn a whole lot about these characters.
While the movie does bring a unique perspective to the slasher genre, it also largely follows the slasher formula and shows great inspiration from what came before it. The teens are silly and dumb, delivering super silly dialogue that you know is silly on purpose. The killer eventually gets a mask and weapon that feel like they’re a signature part of him. The movie plays around with your expectations on who the final victim is going to end up being. While this isn’t your typical slasher, you still get your typical and fun slasher tropes, and that really really added to my enjoyment of the movie.
Of course, the big reason people go to slashers is blood and gore, and In a Violent Nature absolutely delivers on that promise. This movie gets fucking brutal, with two standout kills that have to rank among some of the craziest kills the slasher genre has to offer. The body count may not be as high as a later Friday the 13th entry, or even 2021’s Halloween Kills, but what it lacks in quantity, it more than makes up for in quality.
Not everything works. The ending didn’t do a whole lot for me, for starters. And the movie sometimes doesn’t commit to sticking with the killer’s perspective the whole way. I partially forgive that though, because at one point it adds to the movie in a really cool way. When we do cut away from the killer, it largely revolves around other characters talking about the killer, whether it’s ghost stories, or the actual origin of Johnny. It almost makes feel like we’re watching something that’s the third or fourth movie in a franchise, and I thought that ruled. It’s surprising how simple and straight forward it is, yet isn’t afraid to add a little bit more to its world (including a quick scene that, I can’t believe I’m saying this, actually made me feel sad for the killer).
In a Violent Nature, in a lot of ways, feels very similar to last year’s Skinamarink, which is also a Shudder exclusive. Both are slow burns, both are giant swings, both play around with a horror subgenre that we have grown familiar with and have become divisive because of it. While I very much enjoyed the movie, I haven’t really been recommending it to a lot of people I know. All I’ll say is this. If you are not up for a slow burn movie that’s largely very quiet, this is absolutely not for you. Even knowing what you’re going in for, you still might not enjoy it, and that’s perfectly okay! It is an experimental film, and that’s what comes with an experimental film. I would recommend it to those who are slasher veterans that are interested in seeing something new. Like, actually something new. I can’t say for certain you’ll enjoy it, but I think you will at least appreciate it. Or, like me, you will not only appreciate it, but find a lot to love. Bless the people at Shudder for taking chances on movies like this.
