In a Violent Nature (2024)

Score: 2.5 / 5

Here's the thing about an experiment: it doesn't always work. So many people get so upset when movies don't fulfill their expectations -- usually due to marketing -- and then loudly decry a lack of novelty and creativity in contemporary films. Nuanced discussion of what works and what doesn't, which is by definition subjective, is sacrificed on the altar of solid, opaque opinions loudly blasted on social media and irrevocably tainting thoughtful post-screening discussions or recommendation boards. I'm so tired of it. Where are the patient, reasoned conversations about how it impacted you, what elements piqued your interest, why certain bits pulled you out of the moment, or how you might conceive the material differently? This, dear reader, is my goal with this blog and in my life, and perhaps it's time to reaffirm that for myself. Won't you join me?

In a Violent Nature is like nothing we've seen before. On those merits alone, it deserves praise, not least for its writer and director Chris Nash, who surely made it on a minuscule budget in rural Canada. It reads as a sort of love letter and deconstruction of rural slasher films, a minimally populated classification that pretty much includes Friday the 13th, The Evil Dead, and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Nash boldly wears these influences on his sleeve, parading them in arthouse fashion strikingly reminiscent of Terence Malick and Gus van Sant. Here, I'll cautiously say that the most obvious inspiration points are to Maniac (specifically the limited POV) and to Friday the 13th Part 2 (specifically the plot and certain scenarios), though there are particular scenes that clearly draw lines to the other titles I referenced above.

If pastoral horror is a thing -- I suppose it is, right? Lamb, Midsommar, and The Dark and the Wicked come to mind -- this takes it to a new level. Immersive sound design plunges us into the forest, and a lack of scoring makes the soundtrack to this film little more than the birds and frogs chirping in the distance. Apart from occasionally diegetic music (from a radio, for example), the only real sounds are those of the main character walking and of course the sounds he makes as he slaughters the hapless other folks roaming his domain.

What? Oh yes, I nearly forgot to tell you what this strange film is. It's a slasher in its most deceptively simple way. Unseen teens wandering the woods pocket a locket dangling from the remains of a fire tower. Soon after, a hand reaches up from beneath the dirt and rotting leaves, followed by the questionably preserved animated corpse of a hulking man who immediately follows their trail, plodding through the brightly lit forest with no especial speed. His meandering takes most of the film's runtime, and for the most part, we follow him closely, hovering a few feet behind his shoulders, only seeing his face once (and it's a doozy of a shot), forcing us into the somewhat lonely, simple headspace a mindless killer like Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees likely has. It's a weirdly ASMR-like approach to what visually reminds us of the video game Dead by Daylight, and it's almost serene. The boxy aspect ratio and warm scenery is relaxing, beautiful to behold for most of the film. 

Until it isn't. This is a slasher, after all, and when the kills come, they are abundantly gruesome. This film doesn't dabble in clever traps, waste time with elaborate set-ups for jump scares, or even offer any real tension. We just plod along with "Johnny," as we learn the killer is called, as he casually butchers the anonymous teens and anyone in their vicinity on his hunt for the locket. We do get brief moments of dialogue amongst the teens and eventually a park ranger, which do reveal the history of the area and of their monstrous pursuer. Those scenes don't really work for me because they take us beyond our established POV for the sake of explaining plot to us that we don't really need. I'd have been much more satisfied if this film were essentially silent, or if (even better) it were all filmed in (what would appear to be) a single take. Johnny himself never speaks; indeed, you might consider him a force of nature, an idea that makes the final scene make a hell of a lot more sense. We'll get to that presently.

Very little of the film is in fact scary, but the atmosphere is hypnotic. And then there are the kill scenes. Your mileage with them will vary, but I found them gory and graphic to a fully unnecessary extent. Three in particular involve body mortification (torture to a living body in one case that does actually speak a bit to Johnny's character and motivation, perhaps), and those scenes are really hard to watch. That said, the first of the three involves a young woman and is so aggressively bizarre and gross that I had trouble keeping my giggles silent for several unbearable minutes afterward. Worse, the setup is just stupid, as she simply stands there as if wanting to be brutalized. The last kill, on the other hand, is animalistic and vicious in a way that did not make sense to me in the film's context. And none of it, again, is very scary, partly because we're with the killer the entire time, and partly because all the other characters are so obnoxiously stupid -- constantly splitting up, being unsafe, developing plans to fight back and promptly abandoning them -- that it's almost desirable to see the creative ways in which they will die. The acting is negligible, but maybe that's because the characters are, too.

By the finale -- after a frustratingly poised anticlimax, with stupid choices and a failed final fight, we're really not sure if the denouement is going to surprise us with a twist -- things are just about done when we're treated to a really tense and lengthy scene in which the Final Girl (yes, that trope is here too, brought about like all the other tropes herein from the sidelines rather than directly) is rescued by a mysterious woman in a truck. SPOILER ALERT: The woman seems to honor the girl's privacy before treating her to a monologue about her own brother's near-death encounter with a bear in the same woods. There is a hint that the woman is dangerous, especially when she stops the truck to tie a tourniquet, but then there's a final shot hinting that Johnny's quest is over and the woods is at peace again. I think the title plays a key part in understanding the interplay between Johnny, this woman's story, and the pastoral horror we've endured. Is nature inherently violent? Are we? Is it just when we interact with nature? This isn't a man-against-nature drama thriller, or even a killer animal movie. It's a distinct beast of its own, poised against existing titles and subgenres that beg for dialogue and aesthetic connections. 

For the unique viewing experience alone, I do tepidly recommend this film. For the fascinating conversation that can and should follow a screening, I more stridently recommend this film and request attendance. Experimentally, to conclude my opening idea, it's a mixed bag of results that invites each viewer to pick and choose what you like and dislike, much like we saw with Skinamarink and The Outwaters only last year. For my own interests, it fell a bit flat and I was consistently distracted by how and why I'd have directed a very different film from the same material. But, and this is key: this would be an excellent choice for an outdoor summer movie!