You ever wonder what Jason Vorhees does in between massacring teens at Camp Crystal Lake? You ever wonder what he does after stepping in front of the camera only to appear behind his victims in the next scene across the lake? Turns out it’s walking, lots and lots of walking.
In A Violent Nature tries something different. It’s a slasher film shot from the perspective of the killer. From there the viewer follow him around as he walks around a forest and stalks his victims looking for a gold locket from his past. Right off the bat the concept gets old very fast. A good chunk of this movie’s 94 minute runtime is following the killer around. That’s it, he’s just walking. I understand the marketing strategy of billing a movie “The Scariest of the Year,” it seems to be something A24, Neon, IFC Films and Shudder all juggle around but putting this film up to that moniker is just silly. I looked into the film’s director Chris Nash and found he’s only directed short films. In A Violent Nature, I think, would work way better as a 25 minute short film. There’s just entirely too much walking. Even with the intention of the filming bringing an ambient atmosphere, we get it like 20 minutes in, the message has been sent, delivered, read and replied to. The dialogue is laughable and at times horribly dubbed as it sounds like most of the characters are behind the viewer instead of in front of them. The kills are over the top slasher fun you’d expect and learning that Nash was an effects supervisor on Psycho Goreman made all the sense with some of the more over the top kills. Johnny is pretty brutal however filming from the perspective of the killer gives some unintentional comedy to the mix as Johnny just hacks away at someone. Some of the prosthetic dismemberments are just too fake looking and throw the tone off at times. The kills though are the highlight of In A Violent Nature leaving very little enjoyment otherwise.
The story of the killer, Johnny is nothing special. It’s a rehash of just about any slasher backstory you can think of. Johnny was killed a child while being harassed by bullies by falling off a fire tower in a Canadian forest. Since his death there have been unsolved massacres decades apart all attributed to the reanimated Johnny. Johnny’s reanimation is triggered by a gold locket belonging to his mother, that is found by a group of kids in the woods at the beginning of the film. Johnny then rises from the ground and kills anyone he comes in contact with while trying to find the locket. It’s suggested by one of the kids after seeing their friends killed that they just give the locket back but an overzealous park ranger assures them that’s not how it works. It turns out however that is exactly how it works. The last remaining survivor leaves the locket on a gas can she planned to use in a trap for Johnny and she runs away. We then see her run through the forest for entirely too long before being picked up and we finally see Johnny retrieved his family’s locket and is now at peace presumably back in the ground.
In A Violent Nature sure has a lot of shots of nature with occasional violence when we’re not forced to watch Johnny walk around. What should be 25 minutes is stretched into 90 and another one of the “Scariest Movies of the Year” is nothing more than an arthouse project.
In A Violent Nature – 2/5
