Watched In a Violent Nature.

Wasn’t sure what to make of this one, I saw the DVD box at Walmart a few months ago and the packaging did not fill me with intrigue. If anything, the screenshot with a bloody hand reaching towards a portly man in anguish screamed, “B-movie schlock with bad acting but might be funny.” It was a very underwhelming and tonally weird movie case, the cover is pretty simple and eye-catching, but the back is fully colored and looks like it’s selling a generic slasher flick. Why am I making a point to talk about the DVD case when I watched it on AMC+? Because I forgot the case belonged to this title, so when the bloody reaching hand scene happened, I was said, “Oh fuck, this is *that* movie? Alright, damn.”

So how was it?

Pretty good, I enjoyed it.

In a Violent Nature is an inversion of a traditional slasher film, as in we follow the killer, rather than the teens he stalks and kills throughout the runtime of the movie. Accompanying this perspective change is a unique method of presenting typical slasher horror; I’d hazard to say this entire movie is a sort of dissection of how bloody killing spree movies are filmed. The movie doesn’t mean to disparage the genre or try and make you believe most slashers are generic and same-y and that you should praise this film because it’s different, it simply strips away how the movies are typically filmed and edited to show you how it may look ‘in the real world’. They pull back the camera on a typical slasher movie. Literally. A final note before I get a bit more in depth: the movie is shot entirely in 4:3, the best aspect ratio for horror.

Will my bias towards the superior 4:3 skew my review of the film more positively? Absolutely yes, your favorite movie would be better in 4:3, it sucks now because it isn’t.

The movie starts with a conversation between off-camera characters, they mention chicks and find a necklace before leaving. You never seen them, we simply hear their banter to get a grasp on their personalities, though that hardly matters. The first character we see is our protagonist, Johnny, the killer. Right away he has a lot of similarities with Jason Voorhees: large, seemingly undead man in tattered clothes who is entirely silent and walks with menace and without urgency. That last part is crucial because our boy Johnny gets his steps in. This is where the reframing of slasher films truly begins, the camera trails behind Johnny as he walks from location to location, we never see his face until the third act. As we follow Johnny, we hear scenes that would usually be filmed as the focus unfold, characters reveal important information for the viewer to absorb as he approaches.

I won’t talk too much about the kills because ‘why spoil them?’, but I do want to mention the first one a bit, and a bit of another one later on. If you don’t want to read it that’s cool, just skip the next paragraph. Just know that it just further solidifies the whole ‘deconstructed slasher’ I’m talking about.

The kills, a quintessential aspect of any good slasher, also receive this altered perspective treatment. The first major one, in which Johnny beheads a man from the jaw up, has a musical accompaniment; unlike other movies the music does not come to the forefront of the scene and becomes a song that’s playing over a brutal killing. It is instead mixed as if it’s actually playing from the character’s cassette player after his headphones are ripped from the device. The other kill, which happens not terribly long after the first one, involves a character being twisted up in a ghastly manner most foul. It’s a further elaboration of ‘how a slasher would look in reality’ by showing the pure strength that is required to pull off such a feat. During the process you see Johnny stop for a moment to regain his grip on the chain he’s using in order to finish the hilariously over-the-top kill. It’s not that Johnny isn’t a buff-ass bipedal pitbull, it’s that twisting a human up like that still takes effort.

That’s really all I want to say about the movie, mostly because it feels like this sort of deconstruction/pulled out perspective of a slasher flick seems to be the entire point. It would be a fun movie to talk about a bit with other slasher fans I imagine; outside of the premise the film is playing around with, it’s kind of a standard, almost generic slasher. Very much intentionally so, I imagine.

The acting is fun, the teens in specifically feel like diverse annoying dirtbags you wouldn’t mind seeing butchered for 90 minutes. The cinematography is nice and weirdly serene as Johnny just calmly trudges through the wilderness on his way to maim the next person. There’s little to no music, a purposeful decision to strip away the more Hollywood feeling a schlocky slasher, I can only guess.

I recommend In a Violent Nature if you like practical effects for bloody murder and if you want to want a slasher that’s a little more chill for the end of the work day.

9600 ASMR Forest Sounds to Chill to/10