At some point, filmmaker Chris Nash had a revelation. Maybe it was in those moments right before sleep takes hold, when the head carnival, against all sense, is at its most raucous. Maybe it happened while watching another movie, or when his mind was drifting away from a banal or uncomfortable conversation. Whenever it was and whatever the situation, Nash must have thought, “What if a Friday the 13th movie were told from Jason’s perspective?”
That simple idea is what drives In a Violent Nature, from earlier this year. At its core it is a classic 1980s slasher flick, but it’s boiled down until there is nothing left but bright white bones. The movie follows Johnny (Ry Barrett), the Jason Voorhees analogue, as he stomps through the woods and kills people.
The notes I took for the film sum it up:
- Johnny wakes.
- Johnny walks (8x)
- Johnny kills (8X)
- Final girl runs.
- The end.
Sure, there is more to the movie than that, but as a description of onscreen events, that list is pretty thorough.
Like with many slasher flicks, youth is to blame. Johnny is a hulking, deformed, reanimated corpse, who was very much into staying buried beneath the fallen leaves and soft loam of the Ontario forest, when his rest is disturbed by a rowdy group of college-aged youths. Johnny crawls his way out of his grave, and starts the long, deliberate walk towards his victims.
All the clichés of slasher flicks are here. The youths of varying backgrounds, sexuality, intelligences, etc., but all equally vapid; the scary campfire story origin of Johnny, in this case literally told around a campfire; Johnny being a mute, unstoppable killing machine; the 
local who has some more expository info for the audience. And, of course, the blood and guts. Nash’s trick is in pushing the vast majority of that stuff to the background. There are only two scenes in the entire film of sustained dialogue. The rest of the movie follows Johnny like the player character in a 3rd person video game. The camera is behind and slightly over Johnny’s shoulder, and the 4:3 aspect ratio, in taking away so much of the left and right of the screen, only emphasizes Johnny even more. There is quite a bit of the movie that has the quality of eavesdropping on, or, more accurately, overhearing the characters. But it becomes clear that Johnny does not care at all about the drama, and Nash’s material mocks these characters as much as establishes them as typical slasher fodder.
In a Violent Nature didn’t evoke much in the way of fright when I was watching. The sense of tension is fairly high, and the kills jump between disturbing and morbidly funny. Nash and his f/x coordinator, Mike Hamilton, went for the kills with gusto, to the point they push the serious tone of the film into the cartoonish. But, this being an interpretation of old school slashers, and Jason Voorhees in particular, there is an argument to be made that the absurd kills are the right fit.
Nash’s deliberate pace is what will leave the most impression on viewers. Much of the film’s 94-minute running time is spent with Johnny in the forest. And what a forest it is. Nash and company chose the right location at the right time of year, resulting in some stunning photography. The peacefulness of these scenes is in direct contrast to the bad guy inhabiting them, and none of that matters. Like a good road trip, the journey is better than the destination. It’s a skillful display of filmmaking, as the threat of the film slipping into boring nature documentary was constant. The only time the pace fails Nash is at the very end, and even that long final scene works to build one last ball of tension in a viewer’s gut before the credits roll.
The slasher subgenre of horror has so many entries that it was reasonable to believe there were no more themes to explore. That was wrong. In a Violent Nature shows there are still tales to be told, even if this tale was more about a change in perspective, rather than a new story. It’s also a very good movie, and the unofficial official movie of this year’s October Horrorshow.