Writer/Director Chris Nash’s first full-length feature, In a Violent Nature, is a gruesome affair that uses its concept in a way that, unfortunately, diminishes the horror.
Basically, taking the classic masked-killer tropes from movies like “Friday the 13th,” instead of following the victims trying to outrun the killer, the film follows the killer Johnny (Ry Barrett) as he stalks his victims. This seems like a fascinating idea at first, but as it plods along, you realize there are no scares to be had and very little suspense because you already know when the killer is going to strike.
What the audience will anticipate the most is who the killer will off next and how he will go about doing that.
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Much has been made of how gory the film is, and it’s true. It’s pretty gruesome. But aside from one clever, over-the-top death on a cliffside, we’ve already seen variations of the rest of the kills in slasher flicks for over the last forty years.
Nash (The ABCs of Death) takes a curious approach to his story by channeling director Terrance Malick as if he were making a horror film. There are several extended sequences where we simply follow the killer trudging through the forest for an extended period and one well-done sequence where the killer walks along the bottom of a lake to attack his unsuspecting victim.
At times, the killer seems supernatural because he seems impossible to kill, and based on his backstory, he may or may not be a ghost of sorts. (It’s another abused kid taking revenge tale.) But any solid answers are never given, which I’m okay with. It’s better not to know what the villain is, as that leaves it up to our imagination.
I like that Nash used the tropes we already know while twisting the overall perspective on its head. However, the confusion lies in the few scenes where he suddenly switches that perspective and focuses on vacationing victims, one final girl (Andrea Pavlovic), and her interaction with a truck driver (Lauren-Marie Taylor). Only during these subsequent moments is there a modicum of suspense as we wonder where and when the killer will strike.
It’s unclear why Nash decided to see-saw perspectives during the film rather than committing to the concept. But maybe he realized, like we did, that watching a killer stalk his victims isn’t all that frightening. It just feels like you’re playing a first-person video game while the serial killer gets his steps in.
In A Violent Nature opens in theaters on May 31, 2024.
