In a Violent Nature (2024)

I like the idea of In a Violent Nature, a slasher film told from the killer's perspective.  The film looks beautiful, has some pretty awesome kills, and the lack of a score makes the build up to the mayhem feel more ominous.  But the film is hamstrung by its concept, making it a slog at times while you wait for the good stuff.

The film starts out with a long, static shot in a ruined building, as three male characters wonder about the medallion hanging on a stick.  As the trio leaves, one takes the medallion, awakening Johnny from his grave, looking to retrieve the stolen jewelry.  

Give me my medallion back!  If you know, you know.

And that's the plot.  Sure, we get some additional characters to add to the death toll, but slasher fans shouldn't need much more.  As long as mayhem ensues, we'll be happy.  And some glorious gore happens, as long as you can deal with the pace of the film, which is rather difficult.

The idea of focusing on the slasher, rather than the victims, is interesting.  But it means we get A LOT of shots of Johnny walking through the forest to reach his victims.  Even without a soundtrack, the early scenes generate the feel of an apex predator roaming his domain in search of prey.  It really works if John Williams' theme for Jaws starts running through your head (as it did mine).

This perspective also sets up some interesting dynamics we're not use to in a slasher film.  For the most part, we don't know what's going on with Johnny's victims until he is in range to overhear them, which is a nice touch.  But with so much time watching Johnny tramping through the woods, if you see this in the theaters, you might wish you could fast forward through such sequences later in the movie.

Get use to this, you'll see it a lot.

The film reminded me of Planet of Dinosaurs, a movie with endless scenes of people walking punctuated by moments of stop-motion glory.  And if you can get through the walking scenes in this film, kills are damn good.  Relying on mostly practical work from a team lead by Audrey and Fletcher Barrett (I suspect a few scenes were enhanced by CGI to replace the actors with their latex counterparts; it still looks amazing), the film delivers on the gore.  The "pretzel" kill, while a bit over the top, is amazing, and the Johnny's final kill is just brutal.

Oh, are you my new yoga instructor?  

But the film slows to a crawl in the final moments, with a long monologue (well acted, by the way) about a bear attack.  I get what the filmmakers wanted to do with the scene, but it doesn't work, and could have been shot in a way that generated the tension intended in the sequence.

In a Violent Nature (I get the double entendre in the title) is a notable experiment in the slasher genre, but it doesn't make for an engaging film.  Writer/Director Chris Nash says his inspiration was from Gus Van Sant films, but this movie shows how trying to re-invent a genre film isn't always such a good idea.  No matter how good the gore is, endless scenes of the killer walking through the woods are just dull.  Sometimes the formula doesn't need an upgrade.

I'm just gonna keep walking.  You'll get to the good stuff.  Eventually.