My love for horror has been well documented here on Screen Love Affair already, but to add a bit more to the lore, the slasher genre in particular is how I got into horror movies to begin with. Gram was watching Friday the 13th: Part VII in the guestroom and I, despite being scared, wanted to impress Gram with my brave face so I sat through the rest of the movie with her. My brother Ty found his own way to the Friday the 13th franchise, but he is an even bigger fan than I am.
I don’t remember exactly when In a Violent Nature first appeared on my radar, but when I first heard about it I thought that this was a movie tailor made for Ty and I. What made us so interested was that this movie was a classic slasher, but told from the perspective of the killer.
So, was this a slasher fan’s dream, or our worst nightmare?
My Thoughts
Unfortunately, very little worked for me about this movie. Before I get specifically into my thoughts though, I want to preface this by saying that this was a super small budget Canadian film made by people with no real credits to their names and filmed in the province of Ontario. Not to mention, this movie does something new and takes a chance and I hope that the financial return this movie gets is significant and that the creative team behind this film are able to keep honing their skills and developing more interesting ideas!
While this movie didn’t work for me, the fact this movie exists and got a significant theatrical push is worth celebrating and supporting.
On that note, I will start with the good. There were quite a few small details in this movie that demonstrated a familiarity with the genre and an admiration for what has come before. This movie was clearly inspired by the Friday the 13th movies, but it always felt more like an homage than a blatant and soulless ripoff. The movie opens with the inciting incident that sets our killer loose through the woods and the scenes where the soon to be victims appear all feel like they were authentically written as if this was a real 80s slasher (for better and worse) which I thoroughly enjoyed. This movie is loaded with all the classic horror tropes too, which add to its charm for this seasoned horror veteran.
Unfortunately, that’s where most of the good ends for me.
My biggest critique is that in no way did this need to be a feature length film. This is one of the longest 94 minute movies I’ve ever seen. It’s not entirely unfair to call this a “walking through the woods simulator” because for a significant part of the runtime, that is all that’s happening. While this could have worked better as 20-30 minute short, I really don’t see a way this even could work as a full movie.
If you’re familiar with the Friday the 13th movies at all, I kept thinking about the 2009 movie where Jason was much more kinetic. He wasn’t just big, he moved fast, and *GASP* he would even run after someone if he had to! He also had an elaborate tunnel and alarm system that explained how he could just seemingly appear and always knew where people were. Perhaps this movie would’ve worked better with a protagonist more like that than the more sluggish slasher villains of that older era where they really do just walk from point to point.
Aside from one and a half solid kills, this movie just made me feel absolutely nothing. No tension, no fear, no anxiety, no joy, nothing. I’ve seen this movie described as an “ambient slasher” but it doesn’t even feel particularly serene or anything either. There is no music, the sound effects are mostly dulled and lack any impact. The only time I felt anything was during one particularly creative kill and when the movie suddenly abandons the killer’s perspective and focuses on one of the characters so you feel some of that tension that you haven’t been experiencing this whole time.
Reading other reviews after I saw the movie also made me feel like I saw a different movie entirely. The current Rotten Tomatoes “Critic Consensus” reads, “As single-mindedly focused on mayhem as its demonic monster, In a Violent Nature serves up a deliciously disgusting feast for gore aficionados.”
I have an issue with almost every aspect of this, so I’m going to break down each section of that statement.
“As single-mindedly focused on mayhem as its demonic monster,” mayhem? What mayhem? To me, mayhem contains a sense of chaos that this movie just doesn’t convey. Most kills are done with broad gaps of time between them (filled with lots of walking) and are over fairly quick or are so confoundingly drawn out it left us all confused why we had a seemingly more creative mind than our killer. As for being focused on the killer, the movie entirely abandons that perspective at a certain point, but also breaks away from it throughout the movie as well.
“In a Violent Nature serves up a deliciously disgusting feast for gore aficionados.” So, feast implies an abundance. To borrow from James A. Janisse’s YouTube Channel Dead Meat, where they do “Kill Counts” (must watch for any horror fan), eight people are killed in this movie, which is about one every 12 minutes, but two of them happen basically off screen. Of the six we actually get to see, only one of them was really inventive and gorey, while the others were fairly tame by my standards. Your mileage may vary here, but as someone who has seen a lot of movies, I wasn’t overwhelmingly excited by much of what I saw in the kill department either.
Again, maybe I saw a different movie than these other critics but I’m not sure what these people are even talking about.
Verdict
It crushes me to have to give this score, but I just cannot recommend this one.
This movie was better in theory than in practice and I probably should have known that in hindsight. The slow methodical plodding of an 80s era slasher is not the interesting parts of those movies. While the other characters are running for their lives, we’re quietly walking in the woods with the killer. While characters become concerned off camera as their friends begin to disappear, we’re quietly walking in the woods with the killer. While characters are fleeing looking for help, we’re quietly walking in the woods with the killer. While they plan to make a big stand, we’re quietly walking in the woods with the killer. I think you get the idea.
I firmly believe that there is a great short film in here somewhere to be had, and the clear passion the creative team has for the slasher genre is apparent. I’m still happy I paid to see this in theatres and put my money down to support a swing like this. I really hope that this movie is a big enough success that they get another crack at bat to make something truly special, because I believe they can, this just wasn’t it.
Adriana Wiszniewska