Chris Nash in an interview stated that In a Violent Nature should feel like an entry into a slasher cycle you haven’t seen the beginning of. The film requires an understanding of the genre and the conventions which have been prevalent especially in the Friday the 13th series. A bunch of young people in a place with a dark history. Murders years before whispered around campfires and taken as urban legend by the unsuspecting trespassers on the blood-soaked ground. An unkillable and indiscriminate force awakened to dole out revenge, or to just dole out death.
A group of out-of-town college kids are camping in a lush and sylvan national park. They inadvertently awaken the corporeal ‘spirit’ Johnny (Ry Barrett) by removing a locket from a dilapidated fire tower. Whatever has risen from the unquiet grave is more beast than human, slowly and inexorably moving in on his targets.
The college kids are an updated version of the standard to be slashed fare. Their personalities are mostly irrelevant apart from Troy (Leon Leone) who exists to propel the narrative by being immensely ‘killable’ and the character who makes the most stupid choices which Roger Ebert would term an ‘idiot plot’. The other camper who stands out is Troy’s girlfriend Kris (Andrea Pavlovic) who doesn’t display any particular ‘final girl’ smarts but works out she’s no match for the hyper violent force of unrelenting malice.
Johnny died years ago in a prank that went wrong when a bunch of lumber workers decided they’d take revenge on his father for making a profit on their isolation by running a store selling basic goods at an inflated price. The logging company hushed up the “White Pines slaughter” which occurred after Johnny and his father’s death at the hands of the workers. Years later it’s the tale told by Ehren (Sam Roulston) while his friends get drunk and stoned. Uninterested in back-woods tall tales the group ignores it until Johnny makes his presence known via some of the most inventive and nasty kills committed to screen in a while. It’s unlikely the audience will forget a particular early morning yoga session and a comedically brutal death.
Nash set himself a particular challenge when crafting In a Violent Nature, the killer is to be in every shot from the moment he is awakened. Chris Nash has the audience follow behind Johnny as he slices, dices, pummels, and rips his victims apart with the ferocity of a wild animal. There is no suspense because it isn’t a case of if someone is going to die, more a case of when. And once you get to when the next step is how – which is always gruesomely.
In a Violent Nature is a death trip the viewer is on with Johnny. The camera trails him as he stalks the trespassers in his forest. The restricted point of view adds a meta flourish to the slasher genre where the camera would in close kills such as the beginning of Friday the 13th would act as the murderer’s eyes. In Nash’s movie the audience is the witness to something they know is coming like a messed-up nature documentary with no narration.
It’s Johnny’s sole purpose to hunt. His tragic backstory isn’t something that makes his actions understandable or sympathetic because he is empty. A late addition character (which is a nod to the most obvious cinematic predecessor) explains that “animals don’t get too hung up on reason” when it comes to killing.
In a Violent Nature is ‘pure slasher’ – by reducing Johnny to the thing that kills the plot is uncomplicated. It’s also at times unbearably slow with Nash’s stripped back lumbering approach. What it lacks in surprise it makes up for in gratuitous gore. The slowness is juxtaposed with the over-the-top sadism which becomes darkly hilarious.
Chris Nash’s indie horror debut might get a bit thin in places and by having no investment in any of Johnny’s victims it is hard to sympathise with them beyond the visceral reaction of “That’s gotta hurt.” In a Violent Nature is carnage heaviest hikes in the woods you’re likely to go on; but if unrelenting evil obliterating everything it comes across by making the human body a pulpy puddle is something you want to experience, then Johnny is your ideal guide. In a Violent Nature is plain vicious and there’s no keeping Johnny down.
Director: Chris Nash
Cast: Ry Barrett, Andrea Pavlovic, Cameron Love
Writer: Chris Nash
Producer: Shannon Hanmer, Peter Kuplowsky
Cinematography: Pierce Derks
Editor: Alex Jacobs
