A group of friends happen upon a locket hanging in the area a fire tower collapsed. Without any thought, they take it and accidentally resurrect the long-buried Johnny (Ry Barrett), who the locket was keeping in place. Johnny pulls himself out from the ground and sets off to retrieve the locket, hellbent on dispatching of anyone who gets in his way.
Advance buzz around ‘In a Violent Nature’ suggested that film-maker Chris Nash had injected some much-needed life into the stale horror genre. Stories of audiences being terrified, walking out of the cinema and feeling queasy had me intrigued. Could the film possibly be as glorious as I was hearing? Due to make its debut on Shudder this week, I couldn’t wait to find out for myself and I finally sat down to watch it.
Was it everything I hoped it would be and more? Sadly, it wasn’t. Told primarily from the perspective of Johnny, the film certainly has a semi-original premise and the first 10 minutes or so were genuinely intriguing. While there is a cast of nubile young things to be picked off, we learn next to nothing about any of them because the film isn’t about them – it’s about Johnny. What that unfortunately means is long shots of Johnny walking at a glacial pace (even Michael Myers could out-run him) as he ambles from location to location in search of his locket.
At times I felt like I was watching a computer game. The film gave me that feeling of when you get stuck at a pivotal moment and can’t work out what to do, so you wander through every location you can hoping to stumble upon something. The pacing is slow and the lack of a fully-fleshed out narrative doesn’t give you much to dig into. Instead, the film essentially makes you a voyeur on someone else’s murderous rampage. The deaths are epic though, right?
It pains me to say this but not really. While I appreciate the clear nods to 70s horror, particularly the ‘Friday the 13th’ franchise (Johnny could literally be Jason Vorhees by way of ‘My Bloody Valentine’), the kills were so OTT that they lose their impact. The first couple of kills sees the camera pan away and you don’t see much. Director Nash then decides to amp up the gore and violence but the special effects ruin it. You can clearly tell that you’re looking at props and dummies taking a beating, particularly in one gruesome scene where a young woman is forced into a pose that’ll make even hardcore yoga fans squeamish.
‘In a Violent Nature’ isn’t the film I wanted it to be and it sadly didn’t live up to the hype. Seeing a horror film from the perspective of the killer is a cool idea but the film breaks its own set-up when we see events from the perspective of the final girl in the third act. That means the last 10 minutes or so are a slog as we’ve spent no time with the character and don’t care whether she lives or dies. ‘In a Violent Nature’ will tick off plenty of nostalgia moments for horror fans but beyond the gimmick of the premise, there’s very little meat on the bone.
Cast: Ry Barrett, Andrea Pavlovic, Cameron Love, Reece Presley, Liam Leone, Charlotte Creaghan Director: Chris Nash Writer: Chris Nash Certificate: 18 Duration: 94 mins Released by: Shudder Release date: 13th September 2024
