In A Violent Nature

It is both stating the obvious and an understatement to say that In A Violent Nature deconstructs the slasher genre. If your eyes rolled back like a slot machine, I understand. There have been so, so, so many movies that deconstruct and analyze slasher movies; Scream, The Cabin In The Woods, The Final Girls, and so many more have turned the genre inside-out with different takes on the genre and its trappings. But, at their bedrock, they all still respected the trappings; Scream, for all of its meta nature, follows the same basic formula as any other slasher. The Cabin In The Woods exposes the template and makes its components mean something within the movie's world. The Final Girls blends Scream and Cabin, with a touch of Last Action Hero. I say all this to build up to the idea that, while there are so many movies that dissect the genre, they all still use the basic template of them. In A Violent Nature is unique in that regard. It doesn't intend to deconstruct or examine the genre, but it does, by way of its gimmick. That gimmick tosses the template aside. That gimmick is to do what no other slasher movie has done: follow the killer. I don't mean in a Behind The Mask kind of way. I mean, literally, following. Like, walking behind. Here is where I'd normally do a plot synopsis for reference, but I can't do that here. In A Violent Nature's gimmick -- of shadowing a Jason Voorhees-style mute undead slasher killer -- defies a lot of not only genre conventions, but movie conventions as a whole. Except for a five minute campfire killer's backstory exposition dump ripped straight out of Friday The 13th Part 2, and the last 15 or so minutes that switches to following the last survivor, In A Violent Nature, quite literally, follows the killer. We hear snippets of dialogue when he's stalking a particular person, so we get a vague sense of relationships and interpersonal drama (and some backstory for killer Johnny), but it's just that: vague hints. There are no character arcs, because there are no characters. And I don't mean in the "all slashers have shallow, one-dimensional cardboard cutouts waiting to be knocked over" way. I mean, these characters make those in 80's slashers look like Oscar-caliber writing. Every character has a name, but I'll be damned if it's said more than once, and it's hard to trace what name belongs to who. The characters don't get enough definition to meet the minimum standards required for the slots in Cabin In The Woods. There is no "slut" or "jock" or "asshole". There are men and women. You will get to know the clerk at your grocery store in the five minutes it takes them to ring up your stuff than you will out of the characters in this movie, and that's by design. Following the killer all the time means being away from the cast. And as the killer is mute, he's got no personality or character either. He's walking death. Having this perspective for 85% of the movie has a knock-on effect that, from what I've read, the creators absolutely intended. They wanted to fly in the face of convention. I've read that, at fan Q&A sessions, they made filmmaking decisions with the stated goal of pissing off viewers. I have a weird respect for that kind of trolling, but I can't deny that the end result leaves a movie that is more respectable for its boldness than enjoyable. The biggest downstream effect that you won't even notice until the last 15 minutes is the total lack of stakes or tension in this movie. Now, you may be saying "Jed, we know the slasher killer in ANY movie is going to kill 90% of the cast, how can there be stakes?". Well, friend, let me illustrate with a comparison. There's a scene in Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter where, during a party, six characters go their separate ways. Tina and Jimmy go upstairs to have sex. Terri, Tina's sister, leaves the party, angry at her sister for trying to sleep with every guy at the party. Teddy, having struck out with Terri, smokes pot, finds an old stag film in a closet, and screens it. Sara goes upstairs and tells Doug, the guy she likes, to meet her in five minutes. None of these people are going to survive. We know who our final girl is. But what we don't know is the when, where, and how these people will meet their deaths. Is Jason in the house or outside? Will he get Tina and Jimmy in one fell swoop, like he did Sandra and Jeff in Part 2? Will he get Sara as she's preparing to lose her virginity to her crush? Or maybe Terri, outside in the storm. The suspense is not knowing where Jason is, when he will strike, who he will kill, and how. In A Violent Nature has none of that because it CAN'T have that. We know when he's gonna strike, because we're following his every move. Now, this does provide some interesting moments, like watching him stalk someone, or make the on-the-spot decisions of weaponry used. There is some cool cinematography used for some of the kills, like a girl who is drowned in the nearby lake. It is filmed from across the lake where she is; Johnny enters the water and disappears, and the camera stays put, with the girl a faint moving dot. We see her swim and consider getting out ... and then she gets pulled down with a yelp, all while we're hundreds of feet away. It's a cool visual ... but we know she's going to die. We know how, because of the circumstances. That's the case with everything in this movie. There is no rise in tension and no payoff, because we follow the entity who should be creating the tension. It's appropriate that there's long stretches of the movie where we just follow Johnny walking, because that's what this movie feels like; a leisurely stroll, interrupted briefly by a murder we know is coming. There is almost a metronome-like quality to listening to Johnny's footsteps in the forest. There is no score, and the sound effects like footfalls are simple and not exaggerated for effect. It's like a murderous National Geographic special. Its deconstruction of the genre comes not through surgical dissection but as a result of doing the entire movie from the other side of the story. It is only in the last fifteen minutes or so that the movie stops being about Johnny and starts following the lone survivor. And while her paranoia at getting away finally injects something resembling tension, the movie doesn't do much with it. In fact, it seems to take action to deny the paranoia from raising the stakes at all (I don't want to give away how, but if you watch it, you'll get it). At every corner, this movie's format and its creators use the template to tell a different side of a familiar story, but refuse to let the story be more than the sum of its parts. Sure, there's the visceral thrill of seeing the kills, and as practical effects are used, they're all enjoyable to watch (especially the yoga kill, it is an all-timer), but without the emotional roller-coaster behind it, it all feels like performative actions for the sake of satisfying the template. To put it another way, this is a slasher movie, but it isn't a horror movie. Now, it is a gorgeous movie. The nature shots and the long tracking single takes are almost hypnotic. If it weren't for the disfigured brute holding an axe occupying the screen, you'd be forgiven for thinking this was the Planet Earth docuseries. On the other hand, this adherence to shooting nature as is has its downside, and that's anytime the movie doesn't occur during the day. The commitment to shooting the world as it appears also extended to no artificial or stage lighting. There are sections of this movie where you might think your TV has turned itself off. This is also a gory movie, and I mean GORY. All practical effects, and when they got creative, they went for it. Not every kill is breathtaking, but none of them are dull, and a few will make the most hardened veteran of the genre squirm. So ... do I recommend this movie? I honestly don't know. Its experimental nature lends itself to be checked out, horror fan or no, just to see how this could be done. But I don't know if it ever actually becomes entertaining. This will definitely be a divisive movie; there are some who will no doubt treat this idea as bold and imaginary, others who will call it dull and droning, and plenty in between who don't know what to think. I'm glad it got made. Horror, perhaps above all other genres, lends itself to creativity and invention, and the slasher genre can always use new and fresh ideas. I'll always champion innovation over stagnation. And even if the first time the idea is used doesn't quite work to its fullest capabilities, the next iteration may crack the code. But that doesn't mean the trailblazer is enjoyable; it just means they did it first. I'm glad I saw this. I'm glad it got made. I respect the hell out of the daring choices made here, even if some feel more like trolling than genuine artistic choices. I don't know that I could ever rewatch it, though. The yoga kill, though ... seriously, even if you have no interest in the movie, seek it out on YouTube. Seriously.