In a Violent Nature (2024)

Not rated, but that's because the movie is over-the-top brutal.  If this is a send up of the sleepaway camp / cabin in the woods slasher movie, this movie (at times) tries to outdo the very thing that it is sending up.  There is one death that is so absolutely bonkers that I'm sure that the internet has been talking about it all year.  It's a lot.  There's implied sexuality and sex talk on top of all of the violence.  Also, there is some drinking and drug use coupled with language.  The movie even addresses its own ableism.  Regardless, somehow not rated?

DIRECTOR: Chris Nash

And we're back to spooky season.'  I don't know how many of these movies I'll be able to get in.  The funny thing is that I have watched a handful of movies that have all been bangers so far, yet I'm already tired of all the gore. I  don't know how people do the 31-for-31 October horror movies.  Maybe it's good that I'm starting to become sensitized to all of this infernal carnage.  But it still doesn't stop me from appreciating a well-made horror movie.

But I do have to question whether my blogging and my film class has only made me receptive to movies that act as commentaries on the genre.  Am I such a snob that I can't just enjoy a standard horror movie within a subgenre?  I'll admit.  I'm in the camp slasher fandom.  Out of all of the horror subgenres, I think that the slasher movie tends to be my favorite.  Witches do almost nothing for me.  Slashers I feel like I can cheer along for the survivors.  The funny thing is, outside of movies like In a Violent Nature (a title I keep forgetting given fifteen minutes of not engaging with the title itself.  For those who don't know about this one, this is another movie that turns a subgenre on its head.  The change is a simple one.  Instead of making the victims the focal point of the story --making them the protagonists --we are following the killer.  Over the course of the movie, we learn rudimentary things about the story behind the story and that keeps us going.  If anything, it's meant for us to distance ourselves from the partygoing teens in an attempt to explain what is happening with the killer.

If anything, this movie might be a response to video games.  There is a subgenre ("Say 'subgenre' one more time!") of horror video game that has a 1-4 dynamic.  One person plays the monster; the other four play the survivors.  The goal is to escape or kill the monster, who is overpowered and has abilities that the survivors lack.  Now, to play this kind of game, the person who plays the monster has intimate knowledge of what the killer is doing. They have all of that in-between time that the movies tend to ignore.  There have been many a movie where I've shouted at the screen "How did he get there so quickly?"  After all, as Johnny does in In a Violent Nature, running seems to be borderline offensive to the character.  So for the sake of storytelling, this movie posits the notion "What is the killer doing for the majority of the film?"

The most double-edged sword I can offer to In a Violent Nature is either the word "clever" or "neat."  Listen, I enjoyed this movie.  I signed up wholeheartedly to watch this movie in the hopes that it was going to scratch an itch and it definitely does that.  But in terms of objectivity towards a movie, it can only go as far as "clever" or "neat".  The movie is serving as a commentary on a subgenre.  The commentary is that there is more to the story than just the victims.  Okay, that message is pretty clear.  It's not that we get a rich emotional story.  Johnny's backstory, while very in the realm of the camp slasher tradition, isn't something groundbreaking.  If anything, it might be a bit more reductive than the stuff we get with Jason.  There's only an impression that Jason in Friday the 13th has some kind of disorder.  But In a Violent Nature spells out Johnny's mental disorder.  What we do get is not a sympathetic killer.  I know that if I was making this movie, I would be tempted to give something beyond the tropes presented in this film's ancestors.  But the movie is not trying to do Wicked.  It's dogmatically attaching itself to its progenitors almost to a fault.

But, and I really have to make myself clear, that's a good thing in terms of fun.  In a Violent Nature never laughs at itself, but you also can't help but having fun with it.  Aesthetically, the movie is dead on in line with the greats like Sleepaway Camp, Halloween, or the aforementioned Friday the 13th.  If this movie was not shot on film, I would have to tell you that we are living in the future.  Frame-for-frame, the movie tries to duplicate its retro pastiche both in aspect ration and graininess of film.  The color palate, despite being a movie that is supposed to take place in contemporary times, does more to feel vintage than anything else.  There's one moment that might be overlooked by others.  I don't know.  I haven't read a ton about this movie in an attempt to keep the movie fresh.  But early in the movie, Johnny looks into a mirror and they do this perfectly campy mirror flashback that, again!, never laughs at itself.  Instead, it just creates a sense of authenticity to a movie that is standing on the shoulders of giants.

Can I tell you my favorite secret thing?  I have to imagine that this movie is someone's baby. I'm going to point to Chris Nash, of whom I know nothing.  Nash is so in love with this genre that there are so many nods to other movies.  He never takes a flashlight to these moments.  Instead, he acknowledges that the people who get the references will love the references, but it doesn't matter if you do.  My favorite little detail is that the movie is a sequel to a franchise of movies that don't exist. When we meet the park ranger, we're given all of this backstory of a legacy that has been passed down.  Not only is In a Violent Nature a sequel to a movie that didn't exist, but it feels like Part IV or V of a franchise of movies that we are only peeking in on now.  Yeah, the medallion thing is spelled out.  Chris Nash doesn't want us completely lost on the rules of Johnny.  But we only get just enough to understand that there's greater meaning to how Johnny works.  I adore that.

I do want to talk about the end.  The jury is still out on how I feel about the end.  (Aren't I the jury?  Yup.) There are some moments where the movie is handed off to the teenagers and I don't necessarily hate that. If we're using the structure of a sleepaway slasher, we'll occasionally flash to the killer for the sake of suspense.  Nash hands the story off to the teenagers when we need vital information.  After all, Johnny being mute limits how much content we can actually get from this character.  But the end of the movie shifts to the final girl, who (and I don't care for this moment) abandons her plan to fight the monster in the woods dead-on.  I just haven't seen an "abandon ship" ending for a film.  Instead, she's picked up by a Good Samaritan, who talks her ear off for maybe eight or nine minutes of screen time.  Now, in terms of suspense, I really like this ending.  I think that the movie is betraying its central conceit: make the movie about the killer.  When the Good Samaritan picks up the Final Girl, we have to assume that she's got ties to Johnny.  We're supposed to think that.  But the movie ends anticlimactically.  She's just a Good Samaritan and that's how the movie ends.  

That's a lot of screen time for someone who isn't the killer when the movie is supposed to be about the killer.  If the movie used the escape from Johnny as a hand-off to a Mrs. Voorhees type, then I would have applauded.  But that doesn't really sync with the film.  Also, the words have lesser meaning if she's not the killer.  I do kind of applaud the notion that we're all tricked into thinking that there's a knife behind someone's back when, in reality, it's just a conclusion to a movie about Johnny.  I don't know if there could really be a movie where the Final Girl doesn't have the showdown with the Big Bad. Considering how much effort was put into making this seem like a real horror sequel, I just don't see the movie from the other perspective with an avoidance of the final showdown. It's just such a lost opportunity to make a commentary on formula.  (Although, avoiding a formula is a commentary on formula.) 

But still, the movie absolutely slaps.  Do I think I'll rewatch it?  Probably not.  While the movie is charming as can be (which is weird to say about a brutal murder movie), there is something almost academic about watching the movie.  The fun is there, but not in a joint communal experience.  Instead, my brain was constantly analyzing scenes.  Since Johnny is a copy of Jason, I couldn't stop making comparisons to Friday the 13th movies.  That leaves me kind of hanging in terms of rewatchability.  But did I enjoy it this time?  Absolutely.