Writer - directorChris Nash‘sIn a Violent Natureis both a make love homage to the meretricious slasher movies of the 1980s and an inspired attempt to bring something new to their familiar formula . It commits itself to both of those endeavors with equal warmth — delivering scene with such ridiculously risky dialogue that they would have match in nicely in any of the worst Friday the 13th movies while sticking to a deliberate pace and ocular fashion that feel now opposed to the shed - together aesthetic of so many of the crushed - budget horror dealership starters it was inspired by . The resultant is an overall experience that is at the same time mesmeric and jarring .
The film , which premier in January at the Sundance Film Festival , upends the slasher musical style by placing its focus not on all of the people who unavoidably die throughout it , but the killer creditworthy for their deaths . This time around , it ’s the chatty , often crass adults and teen who are relegated to the background knowledge of the figure , while their silent , masked manslayer is given priority placement in the foreground as he watches them from nearby . This dewy-eyed optic decision allowsIn a Violent Natureto tell a by - the - number slasher story in a emphatically singular style . However , while the film works far better than it should , it also feel frequently torn between its trashy and most disingenuous impulses .
Nash , whose few previous credit include a segment of 2014’sABCs of Death 2 , sagely does n’t emaciate any time setting upIn a Violent Nature‘s tarradiddle . The film opens with a static shot of a necklace hang from the top end of a pipework . Off - screen , we hear a radical of teenage boys exchanging verbal jab and local legends before one of them , against the urgency of his wiser acquaintanceship , make off with the necklace at the center of the human body . here and now later , the pipe it was rest on get down to shake and , within a matter of seconds , the earth it had been struck into has collapsed — opening up so that the rotting stiff of Johnny ( an imposing Ry Barrett ) , an undead killer , can creep out of his temporary grave .
From there , Nash follows Johnny as he wind wordlessly through the fence in woods , get upon bear traps and an unsuspicious sea poker who meets a flying , bloody end at his hand . Over the course of his slow , lumbering journey , Johnny stumbles upon the same group of stripling from the flick ’s concise first step , one of whom helpfully severalise his ally over a campfire all about Johnny ’s distressful origins . It , of track , is n’t long after said exposition has been deck that more blood is spilled . Spill blood is , in fact , exactly whatIn a Violent Naturedoes , and more than a few time .
The celluloid pass most of its 94 - minute of arc runtime accompany a few paces behind Johnny as he stalks his unsuspecting human prey . In the minute when he does catch up with his victims , though , Nash and cinematographer Pierce Derks break by from the film ’s mostly remove aesthetical so as to showcase Johnny ’s murders in all of their ivory - crunching glory . In perhaps its most open - hearted tribute to the Hollywood slasher movies of old , In a Violent Natureturns its manykill scenesinto instances of both stomach - churning horror and undeniable craftsmanship . The film ’s prosthetic war paint work is fear - inspiring , and that ’s particularly clear in one sequence in which a youthful girl ’s yoga session is brutally interrupt . The mo in question seems destined to be clipped onYouTubeand discussed continuously among horror fan .
In a Violent Nature‘s debt to pic likeFriday the 13th Part 2isn’t just seeming in its sanguinary onscreen deaths . The moving-picture show ’s portrayal of Johnny , as well as its misguided insistence on overexplaining his need and backstory , only make the character ’s similarity to Jason Vorhees all the more obvious . While it ’s also admirable to see Nash sample so boldly to combine his passion of both cheap slasher movie and arthouse drama likeGus Van Sant’sElephant(a observe influence ) , his effort to do so are n’t always as seamless as one would hope . Specifically , the film ’s paper - thin characterizations of its shallow teenage and adult character reference , coupled with their often atrocious pieces of dialogue , bumps against its more profoundly consider optical and stylistic selection .
In sealed section , such as a nighttime confrontation between Johnny and a Tommy Jarvis - esque common fire warden ( diddle briefly , but memorably by Reece Presley),In a Violent Naturemanages to bump the right proportion between flashy slasher horror and arthouse - inspired cold terror . More often than not , though , the film seems ineffective to altogether commit to one or the other , and that may make it incompetent of fill enough horror fans to truly allow for a lasting mark on the genre . Those who go into it just wanting a fierce , thoroughly nasty slasher moving-picture show will likely be well-chosen with what they ’re given , but there will also be batch of looker who pass on frustrated by howIn a Violent Naturefails to fully deliver on its promises .
The film does n’t reinvent the slasher genre so much as it presents a Modern angle to tell the same sort of story we ’ve see a hundred multiplication before . It ’s an experimentation that , for all of its many force , comes up a second short . Fortunately , there are worse fates to bechance a movie likeIn a Violent Nature , which has enough interesting cinematic ideas in it to , hopefully , provide Nash with whatever goodwill he demand to get another project off the ground . If there ’s one thingIn a Violent Natureproves , it ’s that he ’s a movie maker of real acquirement and imaginativeness . One can only trust that his next originative cut actually cuts right to the bone — rather than getting catch halfway through .
In a Violent Natureis now play in dramatics .
