In a Violent Nature Review: A Bold, Beautiful, and Brutal Experiment in Slasher Horror

Holy cow. That was a fun time. In a Violent Nature gave us one of the more memorable horror films of the past decade. Now, I'm not saying this movie is perfect... don't attack me, please! I agree there were plenty of areas that could have and should have been better. Still though, this new release ultimately works.

In a past article I noted a fear of too much meandering between kills that could make or break the film. Luckily, Chris Nash made sure to implement beautiful cinematography and static long shots of nature that were gorgeous on the big screen. I was in awe at times and simply taking it all in as Johnny traversed through the woods. It's so tranquil in a demented way, and the fresh perspective on the genre proves that sometimes it can pay to experiment with age old techniques. I do need to warn you though; this film is 75% shot from a third person point of view following our killer from victim to victim. Whether you enjoy that or not is entirely up to you.

The main angle used on our killer is of course very unique, but there were others such as a scene where the camera rotates 360 degrees around our protagonists as they share a five-minute ghost story by the campfire. Another scene, while highly questionable, gives us a first-person point of view of the last survivor as she hitches a ride to the hospital. And then a bizarre final scene that went on for dang near 10 minutes!

Don't worry, there was a good reason for that long final scene -- A legitimate unknown that viewers often don't get to see play out occurs when the survivor gets help at the end... where do they go, who is the person helping them, and what would the conversation be like between the characters? Nash tries to answer some of those questions for us and allows it to play out on screen.

So far so good, mostly. But the icing on this cake is the brutal, methodical, and drawn-out kills. I was appalled (in a good way) by Johnny's kills. First off, Johnny is not a bad villain. I've seen folks call him "Jason from Wish" which is kind of funny, but not true in my opinion. He is the entity of a mentally handicapped child who was killed in a horrific way, so technically he looks exactly as he should. But I digress... the kills were new and well thought out. I didn't see them coming, especially the kills at the cliff and ranger's lodge. If you can get me to tense up on a kill, you've succeeded. Each of the kills did just that.

The victims and ending are really my only complaints here, and they are more than eliminated with the beautiful style of storytelling, and crazy good kills. And yes, we got many good call outs to those that came before, specifically Friday the 13th. What were your thoughts on In a Violent Nature?

3.5 / 5.0