In A Violent Nature
I really liked it. After so many dumb, repeated slashers full of victims doing stupid things, this felt like a huge surprise precisely because it changes the point of view. The story is simple, almost minimal, but it has a very powerful formal idea: to follow the killer, walk with him, look at the forest from behind his back and turn the massacre into a slow, brutal and strangely hypnotic routine.
What grabbed me most was that feeling of a third-person video game. For much of the film it almost feels as if you are Johnny: you move through the forest, hear branches, locate the next victim and keep walking with a terrible calm. This is not the typical slasher where you watch the kids split up, argue and make absurd decisions. Here almost all of that stays outside. What matters is the monster's presence, his path and that violence moving forward without hurry.
That change of perspective refreshes a genre that seemed worn out. The film does not invent the figure of the unstoppable killer in the woods, but it does find a different way to film him. Johnny does not appear only to deliver scares: he is there almost all the time, like a force of nature. We see him walk, fall, take damage, recover and continue. That is why his invincibility does not feel like a cheap trick, but part of his condition as an awakened spirit.
The idea of the locket works very well as a trigger. They take something that belonged to his mother, disturb his rest and the forest releases a buried violence again. No big speeches are needed: someone touches what they should not have touched, Johnny rises and there is no simple way to switch him off. Even when it seems that giving the locket back could close the cycle, things are already in motion.
I also liked that the deaths have personality. They are not just bodies falling one after another, but scenes designed with macabre imagination. Some are truly savage, the kind that make you watch between fascination and disgust. The one in the forest splitting a head, the sheriff with the machine, the way every object or space becomes a possibility for destruction… there it understands very well the perverse pleasure of the slasher.
And yet it does not feel like gore just for the sake of gore. The violence hits because it comes after long walks, silences, ambient sound and an almost absurd wait. That combination of contemplation and brutality is what gives it personality. Many people may find it slow, and I understand that, because Johnny walks a lot. But for me that slowness pulled me into the mechanism: the more he walks, the more inevitable he feels.
Sound is essential. Since there is little music, every forest noise matters: footsteps, leaves, breathing, distant blows, voices off-screen. Sometimes the horror is not in front of the camera, but in knowing that Johnny keeps moving forward even though he has not arrived yet. That patience sets it apart from many slashers that only chase the quick scare.
I also thought it was right that the victims matter less than usual. In another film that would be a major flaw, but here it is part of the proposal. We are not following their drama; we are following the killer. The young people almost become NPCs in a game: they talk, make mistakes, try to set traps and think they can surprise him, until Johnny turns it around and makes them part of his route.
The final shift in point of view, when the camera attaches itself to the survivor, seemed very smart to me. After spending so much time behind the monster, returning to the classic slasher perspective becomes very noticeable. Suddenly you are no longer in hunter mode, but in escape mode. And that displacement gives the final stretch a different, more human tension without breaking what came before.
I especially liked the last shot with the gasoline can and the locket. It has something of a circular ending, as if everything returns to the place it came from, but it also leaves the feeling that violence can fall asleep and wake up again. No great final speech is needed. The image is enough: the object, the forest, the silence and the possibility that the cycle has not ended.
It is not a perfect film, nor one for everyone. It has dead spots, almost nonexistent supporting characters and a very basic story. But that is also part of its charm: it strips the slasher of ornaments and reduces it to walking, stalking, killing and walking again. For me that was not emptiness, but a different way of looking at something I had already seen a thousand times.
In the end, it remains for me one of the most original and stimulating horror proposals I have seen in quite a while. I liked it for its point of view, its strange rhythm, its air of a macabre video game, Johnny as an almost unstoppable entity and its brutally imaginative deaths. It did not just entertain me: it made me think there is a huge vein there. And in such an exhausted genre, that is worth a lot.
What grabbed me most was that feeling of a third-person video game. For much of the film it almost feels as if you are Johnny: you move through the forest, hear branches, locate the next victim and keep walking with a terrible calm. This is not the typical slasher where you watch the kids split up, argue and make absurd decisions. Here almost all of that stays outside. What matters is the monster's presence, his path and that violence moving forward without hurry.
That change of perspective refreshes a genre that seemed worn out. The film does not invent the figure of the unstoppable killer in the woods, but it does find a different way to film him. Johnny does not appear only to deliver scares: he is there almost all the time, like a force of nature. We see him walk, fall, take damage, recover and continue. That is why his invincibility does not feel like a cheap trick, but part of his condition as an awakened spirit.
The idea of the locket works very well as a trigger. They take something that belonged to his mother, disturb his rest and the forest releases a buried violence again. No big speeches are needed: someone touches what they should not have touched, Johnny rises and there is no simple way to switch him off. Even when it seems that giving the locket back could close the cycle, things are already in motion.
I also liked that the deaths have personality. They are not just bodies falling one after another, but scenes designed with macabre imagination. Some are truly savage, the kind that make you watch between fascination and disgust. The one in the forest splitting a head, the sheriff with the machine, the way every object or space becomes a possibility for destruction… there it understands very well the perverse pleasure of the slasher.
And yet it does not feel like gore just for the sake of gore. The violence hits because it comes after long walks, silences, ambient sound and an almost absurd wait. That combination of contemplation and brutality is what gives it personality. Many people may find it slow, and I understand that, because Johnny walks a lot. But for me that slowness pulled me into the mechanism: the more he walks, the more inevitable he feels.
Sound is essential. Since there is little music, every forest noise matters: footsteps, leaves, breathing, distant blows, voices off-screen. Sometimes the horror is not in front of the camera, but in knowing that Johnny keeps moving forward even though he has not arrived yet. That patience sets it apart from many slashers that only chase the quick scare.
I also thought it was right that the victims matter less than usual. In another film that would be a major flaw, but here it is part of the proposal. We are not following their drama; we are following the killer. The young people almost become NPCs in a game: they talk, make mistakes, try to set traps and think they can surprise him, until Johnny turns it around and makes them part of his route.
The final shift in point of view, when the camera attaches itself to the survivor, seemed very smart to me. After spending so much time behind the monster, returning to the classic slasher perspective becomes very noticeable. Suddenly you are no longer in hunter mode, but in escape mode. And that displacement gives the final stretch a different, more human tension without breaking what came before.
I especially liked the last shot with the gasoline can and the locket. It has something of a circular ending, as if everything returns to the place it came from, but it also leaves the feeling that violence can fall asleep and wake up again. No great final speech is needed. The image is enough: the object, the forest, the silence and the possibility that the cycle has not ended.
It is not a perfect film, nor one for everyone. It has dead spots, almost nonexistent supporting characters and a very basic story. But that is also part of its charm: it strips the slasher of ornaments and reduces it to walking, stalking, killing and walking again. For me that was not emptiness, but a different way of looking at something I had already seen a thousand times.
In the end, it remains for me one of the most original and stimulating horror proposals I have seen in quite a while. I liked it for its point of view, its strange rhythm, its air of a macabre video game, Johnny as an almost unstoppable entity and its brutally imaginative deaths. It did not just entertain me: it made me think there is a huge vein there. And in such an exhausted genre, that is worth a lot.
Mini Review: I really liked it. After so many dumb, repeated slashers full of victims doing stupid things, this felt like a huge surprise precisely because it changes the point of view. The story is simple, almost minimal, but it has a very powerful formal idea: to follow the killer, walk with him, look at the forest from behind his back and turn the massacre into a slow, brutal and strangely hypnotic routine. What grabbed me most was that feeling of a...