Sundance 2024 | Movie Review: A Monotonous Premise With Great Kills Makes "In A Violent Nature" A Mixed Bag
6/12 ForReel Score | 2.5/5 Stars
The slasher film has been a difficult genre to reinvent over the past few decades. More often than not, most modern slashers fall into unfortunate genre conventions that make them feel tedious and uninspired, save for some gnarly kills and intense gore effects. Director Chris Nash’s debut feature, In a Violent Nature, somehow manages to be inventive and tedious at the same time, creating an unfortunate tug-of-war between the film’s gruesome prowess and its monotony.
The premise couldn’t be more simple: an undead killer is brought back to life after a group of college 20-somethings steal an amulet from his resting place. What follows might as well be a 90-minute tracking shot made more bearable by sporadic jump cuts and some great kills. It pains me to feel so torn on In a Violent Nature, as the premise of a slasher from the killer’s perspective sounds enticing and engaging. Unfortunately, it’s quite the opposite. If I had a watch, I would have been checking it every few minutes.
Image courtesy of Sundance
The physical performance by Ry Barrett as Johnny, the sadistic killer, is fun when he is actually killing people, but for a significant portion of the film where he isn’t, we’re staring at his back as we watch him lumber (no pun intended) around through a dense forest. What bothers me most about the movie is how it recognizes its own tedium and tries to play it for laughs, but I don’t know what’s funny about watching a big man slowly walk around for almost an hour’s worth of a movie. There is a sense of tension as you know that when he reaches his target, blood will flow, but the eye-rollingly extended sequences of Johnny just walking simply feels boring and obnoxious. Nash could’ve taken the Anton Chigurh route from No Country for Old Men by throwing random victims in front of Johnny to increase the carnage count, but the small cast leaves little room for any additional cannon fodder. It has the slowness of Kyle Edward Ball’s Skinamarink without the haunting mise-en-scene - it’s just a big man slowly walking through the wilderness and killing people violently.
Johnny feels like a riff on Michael Myers in the first Halloween movie in the way that he slowly skulks around, but Nash’s attempt to replicate the suspense of Myers’ slow, lurking, eerie demeanor falls short on being entertaining. Instead, Johnny’s slow walking just makes you want to press the fast-forward button. The movie runs at 90 minutes and could be whittled down to 70, which would make the film feel so much more concise and engaging. What’s more jarring is the fact that Nash explained during the Q&A that some of the kills were even longer, which makes me wonder why they exchanged the brutality that is promised for repetitive scenes of nonstop walking.
Now, don’t mistake my apathy for Johnny’s slow moving treks for disinterest in the film’s brutality, because, boy, it sure is brutal. If there’s one thing In a Violent Nature does right, it’s a good kill. When the violence is actually happening, it is absolutely delightful for the horror fanatic in me. The practical effects are shockingly good, and Johnny is always killing someone in a new and inventive way. There is one kill in particular with a drag hook that completely floored me; I think it might be one of the best kills I have ever seen in a slasher film. When the film got violent, my midnight crowd went nuts. The violence is gratuitous, of course, but my God is it realistic. Chris Nash understands one thing about horror: people are just skin bags full of blood, guts, and bones. Every kill was creative, shocking, and exciting, but that’s probably the only reason to see this movie at all. I would consider this the type of movie that you leave playing on the TV at a Halloween party while people half-pay attention to it.
It pains me to say, but In a Violent Nature ended up being my least favorite film of the festival, despite being one of my most anticipated. Regardless of my mixed feelings, I would recommend any horror fan to see it when it comes out on Shudder, as it’s definitely an admirable low-budget horror flick, but it wasn’t really my thing at Sundance.