In A Violent Nature was a film that was highly anticipated for me because of its concept. It’s not original in the idea that a horror film could be shot from the perspective of its antagonist, but it's interesting that it's a slasher film with this concept.
Earlier this week, the poll was centered around movies that were from perspectives of killers and they all had one thing in common: they were human and the films felt like they were more of the serial killer vibe as opposed to that of a slasher.
In A Violent Nature is quite reminiscent of Friday The 13th Part 2 and this idea is exciting. There is a supernatural aspect that we don’t get with the films that were included in the poll. A relic that seems to keep the killer in a dormant state is removed, causing him to awaken and go ruthless after all who are unfortunate enough to meet him...
Disclaimer: There will be in-depth spoilers for the film as I talk about each scene. There will also be spoilers for other films as I compare them to this one. If you haven’t seen American Psycho, Brightburn, or Friday the 13th, there are heavy spoilers. There are very light callbacks to Orphan, Zombieland, and I Know What You Did Last Summer.
This film is set in the woods mostly, giving it a Friday the 13th feel. The killer, which has a name and an entire backstory, even opts to keep his face covered in the same fashion as Jason Voorhees. The tragic backstory explains why he has arisen and opts to attack the people that are traversing the woods.
The killer stalks his prey much like Jason as well, and this perspective could be hard to execute, making it a concept that lands for some and not others. The scenery is nice, but an entire film based on his perspective could understandably get a little frustrating. I wondered if this was why the film swaps between his perspective and the perspective of other characters and I personally felt like the marketing for the movie gave false hope since I assumed that it would be following the killer the entire time. The story is non-existent besides the fact that the killer is in search of his mother’s necklace. Maybe its return will quiet the murderous rage that fills him?
The film opens up with dialogue from some friends who are walking through the woods. We can’t see them, but we can hear them. I very quickly realized that we were supposed to be from the killer’s perspective because we are only shown shots of the abandoned cabin-like building before a golden locket is snatched from the place where it hangs amongst the broken wood. The killer awakens slowly as more shots around the desolate infrastructure are shown. I enjoyed these shots because they were beautiful and I was excited for the film to explore the contrast of its artistic shots and the carnage I had hoped we’d get.
We get spectacular angles, wonderful scenery, and creative deaths as this film goes on, but I’m getting ahead of myself. This killer stalks through the woods, allowing for more creative shots, until he hears two men arguing. He makes his way in their direction as one of the men (a ranger) warns the other, more hostile, man about setting traps in the woods He tells him that he’s “going to find something that’s going to walk right through one of [his] traps.” The ranger is threatened by the hostile homeowner before he drives off and the killer makes his way into the hostile man’s home. Our antagonist sees a necklace and the viewer is given an auditory flashback of his father giving him the locket. Clearly it is sentimental and warrants his rampage (all jokes, I don’t condone his acts at all).
The homeowner makes an attempt to shoot the masked killer, but misses and eventually makes the smart decision to run away. He is able to outrun the killer, which made me wonder how this film will continue. Watching films like American Psycho and Brightburn make it fun because the killers are able to think and speak, are quick, and are capable of overpowering their victims. The viewer also follows a story that has more to it, like how Patrick Bateman (American Psycho) has to be strategic in keeping his crimes a secret. In Brightburn, Brandon’s parents do what they can to help their son and as the story unfolds, it reveals a twist that proves that their son is that of a non-human.
While I was having these thoughts, the homeowner runs into the very woods where he placed his traps. He obviously ends up being caught in one of them and is presumably killed. Unfortunately, it cuts to the next scene of the killer examining the necklace back at the house. His hands are now bloodied, making me question how the homeowner died. I was a little disappointed because this made me wonder if all the death scenes would be taking place off screen. I didn’t have long to think because he continues stalking through the woods, hearing a car and people yelling as they drive off towards their destination.
The scene then cuts to the group of friends sitting around a campfire in the woods. There’s a comedic moment between the friends that struck me as odd because the look and feel of this film made it seem like it was from the 80s? But, they joked about cancel culture. I ended up trying to research when this was supposed to take place, but couldn’t find anything on it. Anyway…
This is where we get the killer’s name and backstory…
70 years ago, Johnny’s father ran shops that sold supplies to loggers. The prices were set high, upsetting those who needed them and so they took out their anger on his son, Johnny. One day, one of the drunk loggers tripped on Jonny’s toy car and broke his ankle, putting him out of work for months. Everyone continued to be angry at Johnny and so conjured up a plan to trick Johnny to climb an old fire tower. They said that there would be toys up there, but Johnny instead was scared by a logger who was wearing a fireman's mask. Johnny slipped and fell from the fire tower, his neck snapping when he hit the ground.
Johnny’s father knew who had done it and a fight broke out. This fight led to Johnny’s father’s death as well. The men claimed self-defense and the company that Johnny’s father worked for opted to cover everything up as well Johnny and his father had never gotten justice and this seemingly resulted in a slaughter years later. It was believed to be Johnny’s soul trying to take revenge.
I left out the fact that they called Johnny “slow” because the term is disrespectful and I would rather use the politically correct term. He had an intellectual disability and I only bring this up because I had assumed that Johnny was a child due to his clear love for toys. Johnny (or, rather his zombified being) looks like a grown man. This was always a question I had in the Friday the 13th universe because Jason drowned as a child, so how did he grow? But, factoring in Johnny’s disability, he could have very well been an adult that still played with toys as well. I am curious about his age, but it’s not really an important fact since this film isn’t about that.
Later, the friends are passing the night by hanging out at a cabin. They are not all together and one of the friends, Ehren goes off into the woods. Johnny takes no time in killing Ehren in a gruesome way, using a drawknife to decapitate him.. I’m unsure if this movie was meant to also be funny, but I found myself laughing at how Johnny carried Ehren’s body through the woods and used it to break through glass. Ehren’s head is thrown through a window so that Johnny can break into a park ranger office. His torso is then used to break the glass containing a firefighter mask, dragging hooks, and an axe…
This entire scene dragged. While yes, I was happy that there was an on-screen kill and laughed at the comedic relief, it seems like it took entirely too long for things to get going. It’s night, so the beautiful scenery that we got earlier in the day is nowhere to be found. The lack of light made it much harder for me to sit through this scene and at the end, a motion light pops on, highlighting Johnny. It could have been a menacing looking shot, but it fell a little flat in my opinion.
The next day, Johnny spots Aurora and Brodie. The two linger on the dock by the lake before Aurora takes off to do some yoga. The girls had engaged in some heavy flirting before Aurora walked off and her last words to Brodie are “I’m still going to go to the lookout to stretch myself out a little bit. Why don’t you come find me when you’re done with your swim and maybe you can stretch me out some more?” As we’re listening to their awful dialogue, Johnny walks through the water towards them. Brodie attempts to enjoy her swim after her friend leaves, but it’s cut short as she is dragged under and drowned. This death takes place off screen as the shot continues to hover on the dock.
I was upset by this, because it would have been interesting to see how this death takes place. Obviously she struggles to keep herself above water, but everything takes place underwater, out of view as we’re left staring at the dock for what feels like an eternity. Johnny climbs out of the water as Brodie’s body floats and he stalks towards the direction that Aurora went. This is yet another scene that takes unbearably long and we don’t even get to see anything involving Johnny’s third kill.
We are then transported to Aurora doing yoga and enjoying the view from the lookout. Johnny’s footsteps are heavy and Aurora thinks it’s Brodie at first, but upon seeing Johnny, Aurora opts to run towards the edge of the cliff… I was so tired by the time I got to this scene. I get that we wouldn’t have a movie if the characters weren’t a little dumb, but I didn’t even have the energy to yell at her to run around him. Johnny is walking and there was plenty of room around him to choose any other direction than the one that leads to an obvious death. Now the sight of Johnny is scary, I get it, and shock may have overridden her will to live, but come on…
She had plenty of time to run around the man that’s only stalking towards her in a slow manner, but she accepts her death (she literally closes her eyes and does nothing) as he stretches her out in ways she couldn’t have imagined. Now… this sounds like an innuendo, but truthfully, Aurora’s death is beyond brutal. It made up for Brodie’s death being so lame and I’d love to explain the gory details, but you’ll have to go and watch the film for yourself. I fought not to turn away because it was truthfully disgusting and brutal, but I had to see how she would go. I never thought I’d explain a death scene as artistic (I have seen the Saw films… some of those were creative) and it was somewhat punny. We keep getting shots of the steep slope that they’re standing above and all I could think was, “if he doesn’t just kick her off the edge of this cliff…” He finally does after he’s done brutalizing her.
After this scene, I became interested in the process of how these kills were contrived. Watching it back, I loved the fact that everything was done practically, without the aid of digitally engineered blood and effects. Another cool shot is the one that’s coming up, showing his face and I almost wonder how long Johnny's actor (Ryan Barrett) had to sit in hair and makeup. In regards to this scene, I ended up looking up an interview with filmmaker Chris Nash:
I think that he pulled off the idea very well. I had never seen a death like that, especially with practical effects. As I sat through each moment, I was constantly wondering what more Johnny could do to take this girl out. How could there POSSIBLY be anything more to do? But my expectations were grossly exceeded and if James A. Janisse of Dead Meat doesn’t rate this kill as the best kill of the film (if he does a kill count on this one), I don’t know what to say. He did do a podcast on it and if you're into his work (I highly recommend watching his Kill Count videos), checkout the podcast here.
Later on, Johnny hears the other friends who are in an argument about their lost friends. One of them throws the keys into the woods and this momentarily distracts Johnny as he picks them up to examine the attached car keychain on them. The face reveal happens here as he seems to remember a much simpler time. The sounds of an ATV starts up and Colt and Kris leave as Troy makes a run into the woods for the keys. Someone brings up Colt’s dead dad and this seems to snap Johnny back to reality. He replaces his mask and resumes his hunt. Johnny is smart by grabbing something to keep the horn honking on their car. He circles around the back of the house and makes his way to the front as a friend Evan is trying to stop the honking horn. Johnny attacks him but the boy puts up a fight. I started rooting for him because no one has really put up much of a fight against this guy. Troy shoots Johnny, but does not abide by “Rule #2: Double Tap” (Zombieland anyone?) Troy helps Evan out because he was injured, and I loved how this scene was shot because we are close to Johnny as he is on the ground. But, we still see the boys in their attempts to get themselves together before their escape. Johnny is centered and in the foreground while the boys are in the background to the right quadrant of the screen.
Johnny gets up, throws his axe at Troy (he has a good arm) and then proceeds to take Evan out like Esther took out an injured bird in Orphan. It was a little sad to watch, but it makes me wonder if Johnny had ever mercy killed an animal when he was alive. It was a simple, yet interesting way to take out a victim.
Colt returns with Kris to see their friends dead and Johnny having killed them. They escape and make their way back to the park ranger station. We get another scene of Johnny stalking his way towards them. It’s not quite dark yet, but it’s still hard to enjoy the scenery because it’s still a little too dark. But, from what I could see, it would have been so beautiful if the lighting was just right.
Night falls and Johnny makes his way there as the two are talking to the park ranger about the situation. The ranger is talking to the two about how the locket that Kris is wearing is what had kept Johnny’s soul at rest. The park ranger taunts Johnny, telling him that he put him in the ground before and that he can do it again. The ranger, Colt, and Kris have a conversation, questioning the stories. The ranger turns out to be the son of the man who killed Johnny. When Johnny sought revenge ten years ago and killed everyone that the ranger loved, the ranger took it upon himself to put Johnny in the ground. The three stand way too close to Johnny’s body, much like we are as we are unable to see the character’s faces. They take way too long to do what they need to do and I was so confused as to why they were standing so close, yet doing everything at snail’s pace. The ranger even KNEW that Johnny wasn’t dead.
Unfortunately for the park ranger, Johnny gets the upper hand. Chris and Colt bolt right before Johnny paralyzes the park ranger, rendering him immobile (except for being able to look around). The park ranger’s death, while prolonged, is what disturbed me the most. He was essentially trapped within his own body as Johnny uses a wood cutter to cut off the park ranger’s hand. He then seems to become impatient and ultimately decapitates him. I thought that Johnny was going to initially put the park ranger on the table to have him endure a slow, painful death as the cutter splits him down the middle. This absolutely does not happen.. A funny moment was when Johnny initially drags the ranger in and shows him the wood cutter. He even throws a log onto it, expressing his plan to the park ranger nonverbally. But, my laughter subsided once he started putting the park ranger through hell. I wondered if the park ranger felt the pain of his hand being cut off, he must have experienced high levels of stress as he was waiting to be decapitated as well. But, there was no way for him to fight. This scene, while intriguing, also went on for ages. I wasn’t bored while sitting through it, but it still felt a bit excruciatingly long. I liked that I was given the time to sit in that feeling of panic for the ranger though.
Johnny stalks Kris and Colt as Colt yells “Come and get us, we’re right here! What’re you waiting for?!” in the very same manner as Julie in I Know What You Did Last Summer.
Johnny immediately kills Colt, seemingly in a fit of rage as Kris could only stare on. This part was wild because while yes, your friend is getting brutally murdered, his death is about to be a waste because all you’re doing is standing there. Colt opted to be the distraction as Kris set up and unfortunately failed in his efforts. Kris takes a moment to set down the bear trap and gasoline tank she was holding, but also hangs the locket on the tank before running away. She spends the entire night doing so until she trips and her leg is impaled with a tree branch? I don’t understand how this happened, but sure. She hobbles to the road and manages to flag someone down. The old lady is nice and offers to help her, asking her what happened and that she’ll be okay. The last twenty minutes of the movie are interestingly (not really) focused on them. The old woman talks about how Kris is okay and how there are things in the woods that people couldn’t survive. Kris seems to zone out, much like I did, as this story went on. It was all so pointless and I was actually upset to then find out that the movie was only about an hour and a half and maybe they needed to find a way to stretch the movie out to get it to that length.
One thing that continued to upset me was that the ending wasn’t even from the perspective of the killer. We were just listening to a lady talk about something that is uninteresting and unimportant. Ordinarily, it would be cool to see something like this from the final girl’s point of view before they get attacked one final time. Or, maybe they make it away? But, this movie wasn’t supposed to be from the perspective of the victims, so this scene felt wildly out of place. The old lady even stops to help Kris get patched up so she doesn’t bleed out from her strange leg wound. I was left feeling like the two were going to get attacked, but all that happens is the scene flashes back to where the bear trap and gas can is …. The locket is the only thing that’s missing and it’s ominous to not know if Johnny went back to his resting place…. Or did he continue walking through the woods looking for prey. We don’t know…. I felt so let down when the credits began rolling.
My final thoughts are mixed. The idea of the film, being from the killer’s perspective was so interesting and it had so much potential. The trailer pulled me in and I was excited. Upon seeing this film, I was met with a lot of disappointment especially when we got to the end. Scenes were long and drawn out and I was so confused when I kept checking the timestamp and realized there was SO much left of the movie (that was only an hour and a half long). I think that it would have played out better if it was a short film instead.
I also found myself being disappointed in the deaths. I think that there’s one really good death scene (Aurora) and then… maybe a torturous scene (the park ranger)? All the others were underwhelming.
I think that the auditory flashbacks to Johnny’s life were cool, but a way to stretch that runtime would have been to do solid visual flashbacks to his life. In that interview that I linked earlier in the review, I saw that Nash didn’t want to humanize Johnny in any way though. He felt that the idea was boring, the more you know about Johnny. I feel the opposite, but I could also see that it could make viewers sympathize with him. But we get his entire story through storytelling by the friends and through auditory flashbacks, so it wouldn’t have hurt to have the visuals.
I had another frustration, that wasn’t a huge deal? But it’s what sold the movie for me…. There were moments where we weren’t from Johnny’s perspective. The last 20 minutes, especially, made me so upset because we could have gotten more from his end. He turns around to kill Kris, but instead sees the locket. He picks it up and… what? Where does he go? The ending killed the vibe of the entire movie because it was slow and the lady droned on. I wanted them to drive away and maybe get caught? Or drive away and the scene cuts back to Johnny resting peacefully or something…
I took some time and looked up the budget for this film and it was only 5 million, which is on the lower end. So everyone could only work with what they had. I don’t want to be too harsh on it because it was also Nash’s feature debut. His inspiration for the film was also interesting and I highly recommend checking out his interview which I’ll link again here. The comedic relief in the film was also something that I enjoyed and he touches on that in the interview as well. I wasn’t sure if it was meant to be funny, but to know it was done on purpose makes me like the film a little more.
Anyway, that's my review of In A Violent Nature. Have you seen it? If so, what're your thoughts? Thanks so much if you made it all the way through this lengthy read. I think I got a bit carried away, but this was one I really wanted to dive deep into. I hope you've all had a wonderful week and your weekend goes well. I'll catch you next week!
🔪Versa
I'm gonna give this film a watch soon, thanks for the review 🙂