FILM REVIEW | IN A VIOLENT NATURE

 

Something a bit different today. Now I know I am not a film reviewer (you could also say that about my book reviews😂). However, I don’t always spend my time flicking the pages of a good novel so I thought I would expand the blog a bit and add some of my other interests. 

I tend to spend most of my time watching horror films and this one was on my to watch list. 

Synopsis

When a group of teens takes a locket from a collapsed fire tower in the woods, they unwittingly resurrect the rotting corpse of Johnny, a vengeful spirit spurred on by a horrific 60-year old crime. The undead killer soon embarks on a bloody rampage to retrieve the stolen locket, methodically slaughtering anyone who gets in his way.

My thoughts

 

Premiering in January 2024 at the Sundance Film Festival, In a Violent Nature is the latest film by Canadian filmmaker Chris Nash (The Void, Lifechanger, ABC’s of Death 2).

Touted as an ‘ambient slasher’, the film follows resurrected mass killer Johnny as he hacks and slashes his way through the group of teenagers who accidently brought him back to life when they took his mother’s locket from a cabin in the woods.

From the opening scene in which the camera focuses on a group of sticks and the teenage protagonists are not shown, listening to their voices on the sidelines, we know that this is going to be a different approach to the slasher genre.

                                   

Mainly following the story from the supernatural killer’s perspective, we spend our time on the shoulder of our antagonist, Johnny as he trudges  around the forest moving  from one area of the forest to the other, brutally butchering those he meets on the way.

For most of us horror buffs we know what form a slasher takes. It could take the traditional route or follow Damien Leone’s path. However, Chris Nash decides that the path never travelled will be the one that he takes, and whilst it has all the traditional gore associated with these types of films, Nash turns the genre on its head.

For instance, it removes all the normal jump scares that you would expect by removing all the normal musical indicators that are common in slashers. In fact, most of the film is almost silent except for the sound of the nature as we follow Johnny as he slow walks his way from one kill to the other, and whilst all the dialogue that you normally in the genre is there, you hear it from  sidelines of the film, and it is something that we hear rather than them being the main focus of the film.

However, don’t think that the film does not have the usual over the top kills. They are all there, but they feel more visceral as we see the deaths from the antogonist’s viewpoint, and turning the normal tropes on their head, it is the teenagers that pop up rather than the killer.

This is one of the main themes of the film, how many tropes can be subverted and turned on their head. For instance, there is one scene in which a potential victim goes into the water for the usual skinny dipping shenanigans, and whilst you would usually see the killer burst from the water, or the victim disappearing in a gout of blood, the scene is unusually quiet.

       

Throughout the film, Nash carefully drip feeds information. For instance that this is not the first time that Johnny has been resurrected, or the tragic circumstances of him being brought into being.

The film doesn’t always work in its genre bending ideals and this shows particularly at the end when one too many tropes are crowbarred in, and in this instance less would have been more.

The final standout goes to Pierce Derks cinematography who maintains an over the shoulder viewpoint for most of the film. In addition to this, the sound designers did a great job capturing the sound of the forest and the scrungy sounds of Johnny’s antics.

In a Violent Nature is currently available on Shudder.