'In a Violent Nature' Takes a Unique Point of View
What’s the dullest aspect of a horror movie? It’s the scenes in between the killings. The scenes that feature our cast talking about nothing remotely interesting until the killer shows up to kill everyone. Writer/Director Chris Nash gives us what we want from the get-go. He skips all the teen conversation and sex to take things from the killer’s perspective. In a Violent Nature is horror slow cinema. Most of the film follows the back of the murderer walking through the woods. It’s eerily unsettling. It’s like watching Friday The 13th or Halloween if it followed Jason and Michael Myers.
The film opens on a long image of a broken down hutt in the woods. We can hear two people speaking; one of them, Ehren (Sam Roulston), asks his friend Troy (Liam Leone) if he’s ever heard of the story of the white Pines slaughter. Troy doesn’t like him bringing the subject up telling Ehren he doesn’t want any of his nonsense. The camera then dollies onto a tree branch which a golden locket is dangling off of that Troy grabs. Immediately following that, a body comes out of the dirt and leaves. It’s a bulky bald looking figure that the film doesn’t unveil his appearance. Once the man resurrects, he takes a machete that is left near his body so he can go on his hunt, presumably for the locket.
As it’s later revealed, Ehren tells the story of the white pines murder. A long time ago, Johnny (Ry Barrett) had an unfortunate incident where he died. He was the son of a store owner who jacked up his prices during a tough economic time. Angry customers confronted Johnny’s father about the price gouging resulting in his death. With the two dead, a man in a mask went around on a slaughter. It’s said that it could be the spirit of Johnny; others say it was just some psycho. However, there are some who say it could be both. The point is, the man on the prowl for the locket is Johnny resurrected like he’s Jason Voorhees. Johnny is even baldheaded and filled with cuts like Jason.
Intelligently, Chris Nash doesn’t reveal the killer’s face. He makes it a mystery for the audience so that whatever we imagine his face to be is far more terrifying than what he really looks like. That is until the middle act of the film that ditches the mystery to give us a fully lit, full frontal view of Johnny. Admittedly, the makeup crew did a bang-up job on Johnny’s face. It’s fittingly disgusting. But it would have been nice to keep Johnny’s face up to the imagination.
What makes this film work so well is its deliberate, slow pacing. It’s a film that doesn’t wast time while also being a picture that spends most of its time building up to each kill. The result is a very uncomfortable feeling. The film is mostly shot on a steady came with a wide lens following Johnny on his rampage. There’s no score to accompany the film either, leaving us with only the sounds of the woods and the cries of Johnny’s victims. There’s no more terrifying sound than the sound of silence. It’s what we all hear when we’re asleep or when we’re dead. There is an instance in a museum where we listen to something I can only describe as something from Silent Hill. By the film’s end, I was left a bit unsettled but not overly disturbed.
In a Violent Nature is a horror film that rearranges the slasher’s conventions and produces some of the most spectacular kills I have seen this year. There’s one kill involving a tree cutter and another involving a meathook that doesn’t shy away from the gore. The takes are long, and gore plentiful. For all you sicko-blood fiends out there, this is your movie. If you’re a horror fan, this may stand out as either a classic or an artsy horror film that’s known for its methodical pacing and gore, but not much more than that. For me, I loved the structure. It doesn’t rely on jump scares to create horror. Filmmaker Chris Nash makes a methodical slasher that, although plentiful in gore, is more memorable for its long approach.
