‘In A Violent Nature': Gory Art House Horror Film is An Indie Hit for IFC

I finally caught up with Chris Nash’s “In A Violent Nature,” an inventive reworking of the slasher genre that’s filmed from the killer’s perspective. It’s very gory, but no less interesting in the way Nash tries to reform the way such a genre-specific story can be told.

The film answers a question we never really asked ourselves, what does a deranged slasher do in between kills? It turns out, not very much. He just walks, eavesdrops on indistinct conversations, and when opportunity strikes, kills. There’s a mundane aspect to the film that is quite amusing, while other moments can be damn-near compelling in their sheer intensity.

The main protagonist, Johnny, is a rotting corpse, a vengeful spirit. His body is unwittingly resurrected, and he becomes hellbent on retrieving a sacred locket that used to belong to his dear mother. For most of the film, we see him wandering the woods, where vacationing teens are camping, with one of them having found the locket from a collapsed fire tower.

However, don’t expect a '“mainstream” horror flick here. This isn’t “Halloween” or “Friday the 13th,” but more of a counter-response to these slasher movies. Sure, “In A Violent Nature” can be very explicit in its gore, with lots of blood, guts and decapitations, but it’s also an arthouse film in the way Nash shoots and paces his narrative — there’s a ton of long tracking shots being used here.

There’s a surprisingly serene atmosphere to Nash’s mise en scene. In the press notes, the filmmaker namechecks Terrence Malick as an inspiration. However, once the creative kills do arrive, they’re as nasty as they come, including that of a courageous park ranger (Reece Presley) who tries to stop him, but is met with cruel indifference by Johnny.

The plot is purposely underdelivered, shot with art house aesthetics, as Johnny meticulously, and very patiently, finds his victims one by one and kills them in creatively sickening fashion. No surprise, the MPA was about to stamp the film with an NC-17 rating, but IFC/Shudder decided to bypass all that and just release the film as “Unrated.”

Smart move. “In A Violent Nature” has become a mini hit for IFC, having already grossed $4M on a budget that’s been reported to be less than $500,000. It’s even gotten the attention of the “King of Horror” himself, Stephen King, who shared his appreciation for the film on X:

If you need a slasher movie, this one will do the job. It’s leisurely, almost languorous, but when the blood flows, it flows in buckets. The killer in his mask looks like the world's most terrifying Minion.

What I find most interesting about “In A Violent Nature” is how Nash manages to use slasher cliches, the most familiar tropes (scenes set in lakes, cabins, woods, campfires) and finds fresh new way of shooting them. It’s a fascinating artistic experiment, and one that works, as long as you’re willing to go along with its stripped down aesthetic.