IN A VIOLENT NATURE
Canada, 2024, 94 minutes, Colour.
RY Barrett, Andrea Pavlovic, Cameron Love, Reece Presley, Liam Leone, Lauren-Marie Taylor.
Directed by Chris Nash.
This is a Shudder production. Shudder is a subscription on demand network for horror, thriller and supernatural movies. It is for a niche market of viewers (some referring to the genre community) who enjoy these genres – and, especially, as a move towards more extreme content and style, an emphasis on slasher movies, horror and gore.
Which is the background for In a Violent Nature. On the one hand, the core of the narrative is almost archetypal, kind of narrative made very popular by the Friday the 13th franchise. A group of people are in the woods, a serious masked killer stalks them, eliminating them one by one – in grim and gruesome style.
This is what happens here. At the campfire there is a story told about a massacre which took place 60 years earlier in the forests, the death of Johnny and his burial, and a necklace from his mother hanging from the iron shafts at the mine. If the necklace is removed, he will rise from the dead. The group of 30-somethings are sitting around a campfire, discussing the story, one taking the necklace, Johnny rising from the dead, a sombre corpse figure, the campers killed in gruesome manner, extreme close-ups of bashings, shootings, decapitations… Which is what the enthusers for slasher films want.
And, there is a survivor, traumatised, getting a lift to the hospital, the audience knowing that there can be sequels.
As said, these films are made for a niche audience. The general public would not want to see this kind of film, would find the visuals too confronting, the narrative upsetting, and many of the details, relished by the writer-director, Chris Nash, a special effects expert. General audiences would want to shut their eyes and turn away.
To that extent, In a is to Nature is what Shudder audiences expect.
But, they great deal of the running time is spent in static gaze at the mine, at the woods, long sequences simply following Johnny with the woods. He eventually finds a mask to wear. This gives the audience plenty of time to ponder who he is, why he is what he is, the fate of the victims. These long sequences are something of a puzzle as to why the director has decided to include so many of them. And, after the last grim killing, and the escape of the woman, almost 10 minutes are devoted to the two women driving the truck, the driver talking and chatting about a relative who survived the attack in the woods, the victim quiet and traumatised. And then the film ends.
On checking with bloggers on the Internet movie database, there is quite divided opinion. Some comments admire the style of the director and his different, slow approach, while many of the regular viewers declare that it is all too slow, too boring…
In a Violent Nature received some theatrical release enabling non-Shudder viewers an opportunity to watch one of their productions.
