Slasher Re-Defined: Reviewing "In a Violent Nature"

Just a tiny bit disappointed that I didn't find the thrill I was looking for in yesterday's Sci-Fi Filmfest's Weirded Out showing (most films just didn't speak to me, except, of course, the very first short film, Joan Vives' Els Amants, which was about a woman's love affair with a tentacled sea monster, but I left early and readily missed one film) I headed to the Creepy Crypt, the weekly horror screenings at Rollberg Kino. And it was the right decision because I could finish the night nevertheless horror-satisfied.

I hadn't watched many trailers for In a Violent Nature and had only seen a couple of stills which show the utterly scary looking slasher walking around in the woods, eventually looking for victims. If you haven't seen the movie, my review might be kind of spoilery for you, though plotwise there's nothing to spoil in this movie. It's rather the case that the function follows the form for this once and not vice versa, and the novelty is in its technique rather than any storylines or twists.

A group of teenagers stop by a sort of ruin of a building in the woods and find a necklace. Taking the piece of jewelry they then continue their way but don't realize that they have woken up something they should have left alone - a slasher unable to die has been resurrected, he's out for them and ready to leave a gory trail behind him.

Now, this could be the story to every single supernatural slasher there has ever been, but the neat thing here is the point of view. Very much like in a video game, as if the slasher were our avatar, we follow him around, mostly walking in nature, only hearing the natural sounds he would hear and his heavy footsteps and no score at all. We are the slasher.

This way of narration isn't entirely new to the horror film enthusiast - the 1974 slasher Black Christmas, Man Bites Dog (1992) or von Trier's 2018 psychological film The House That Jack Built already play to various degrees with a shift in perspective. I bet there are many more I can't think of the top of my head right now. What's remarkable in Nature is its realness, it's similarity to reality, its almost nature-documentary style - the walking around, no soundtrack except for "real" sounds, thus no auditive tension building telling you what to feel, just this one monstruous man walking out there.

A clever trick at the beginning of the movie, the slasher killing his first target to avenge a fox who has been trapped in one of those horrible clap traps, sets the initial tone of a vague sympathy for this cursed murderer. His savage appearance in an otherwise almost romantic setting of idyllic nature makes for an ironic contrast which endears him further to us. It is then alarming and unsettling how the realness of the surroundings coupled with the point of view can build a sick sense of identification and sympathy for a character we know next to nothing of, except that he kills. We basically root for this killer, we are him. And sure, you can always argue that he was disturbed and the teens were at fault for stealing the locket and make it about revenge, it's still disturbing to like a killer so much.

Once a director has the audience's trust in such a way, the movie is basically already a success and they can do just about anything after that. So, having established that, director Chris Nash goes on to tell the story of a series of over the top gory, sometimes outright funny killings with a vague background story, laced with myths and fireplace whispers about a mentally hindered boy bullied into death, but also other possible origin stories resurface towards the end of the film.

And you know what? It doesn't really matter - we had our slasher doing his thing going after the locket, and the killings were so surreal that we could basically laugh at them freely. There was a slight similarity to everybody's favorite slasher Jason Vorhees in appearance and background and we even got something like a final girl, as the last minutes the point of view shifts to the sole survivor of the group. She is saved, and in the car the woman who saves her tells her the story of how her brother was attacked by a bear but survived, and there's all sorts of dangers out there in the violent nature.

The car ride scene was unsettling in its very own way, mainly due to the ambiguity of the situation, of the savior woman's identity and the story she tells. I didn't quite know how to make sense of that scene but I have to admit I've looked the film up on Wikipedia and apparently Nash wanted to draw an analogy between how you can be lulled into a false sense of security in face of things, only then to find yourself in danger - just like the audience is meant to feel secure with the main character, but he's anything but, playing with the way we perceive things in real life and how we welcome them in fiction. I have to chew this over a couple of times for it to make better sense for me, maybe watch it once or twice more.

This picture was amazingly refreshing and one of the better surprises of this year, I didn't expect to end up liking it as much as I did. It has a pretty bad rating overall, more like average, but these are the movies that will later become cult movies, especially in horror circles. It is admittedly slow cinema, but that's intentional, even though it might not speak to the viewer with a short attention span.

A movie doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to be immaculately done, there can be flaws and even inconsistencies. But it does have to have a flicker of intelligence, an originality, a vision, an intent above and beyond money making behind it, and In a Violent Nature offers all of these.

P.S. Upcoming interesting Creepy Crypt Shows - Salem's Lot (26.10.), Vermin (05.11.), The Devil's Bath (09.11.), The Blair Witch Project (23.11), Bagman (30.11)

Bis(s) zum Abspann, upcoming showings - Fright Night (13.11) and Lost Boys (11.12)

Halloween Showings: Twilight Zone: The Movie/Creepshow (Rollberg), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Kant Kino), A Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween Double Feature (Babylon), Jennifer's Body and the FGBFF Halloween Special (City Kino Wedding). Let me know if there's other worthwhile stuff to do!