Slasher movies are a storied tradition in horror cinema. In a Violent Nature, which screened Wednesday at the Sundance Film Festival, has a take that's fairly revolutionary after decades of the genre.
Usually, the slasher is a secretive entity popping out only to surprise and kill the victims. In a Violent Nature presents most of the movie from the killer's perspective.
Johnny (Ry Barrett) wakes up from an unmarked forest grave and begins stalking the forest. The camera remains behind him as he walks.
A group of campers (Andrea Pavlovic, Cameron Love, Charlotte Creaghan, Lea Rose Sebastianis, Alexander Oliver, Liam Leone, Sam Roulston) are staying at a cabin in those woods. Usually slasher movies spend most of their time establishing those victims.
In In a Violent Nature, the campers are only on screen when Johnny is watching them. He watches them long enough to establish their basic personalities and relationships, but they are fodder for Johnny.
One of these scenes does allow Ehren (Roulston) to tell the legend of Johnny explaining how he died the first time. A local Ranger (Reece Presley) know smore of the legend and explains it later.
The backstory unique enough to distinguish Johnny from other movie slashers, but also vague enough not to get too bogged down in mythology.
Johnny kills the campers one by one with methods akin to the Friday the 13th movies, but with no MPA censors restricting the gore. Some of the kills go way farther than Jason ever did.
Many of the kills occurring in continuous takes must be computer generated. Others may be a combination of makeup effects and computer enhancement, but either way they make an impact.
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The perspective isn't just a basic paradigm shift. Writer/director Chris Nash also utilizes it for compelling editing.
Nash matches cuts of Johnny walking in different areas of the forest for smooth transitions. One shot of Johnny's hand cuts to the hand bloodied after a kill, the full extent of which is revealed later.
The perspective isn't exclusively behind Johnny either. One ambitious sequence floats above Johnny and his victims in a bird's eye view.
The film changes perspectives at the end, but it switches to another perspective steeped in horror movie tradition. The ending is a bit inconclusive but if it follows the tradition of other slashers, they can pick right up in In Another Violent Nature.
The appeal of slasher movies are the creativity of the deaths and the appeal of the killer. In a Violent Nature delivers on both counts and the new trick up its sleeve adds to the fun.
IFC Films and Shudder will release In a Violent Nature.
Fred Topel, who attended film school at Ithaca College, is a UPI entertainment writer based in Los Angeles. He has been a professional film critic since 1999, a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2001, and a member of the Television Critics Association since 2012 and the Critics Choice Association since 2023. Read more of his work in Entertainment.