Kicking off with a classic horror trope, ‘In a Violent Nature’ starts on a group of people camping in the woods and unwittingly triggering the awakening of a vengeful and restless soul. Hellbent on retrieving a locket removed from his final resting place, Johnny (Ry Barrett) the re-animated man will slash his way through the group of campers until he gets what’s his.
An unorthodox exercise in the genre, the film is presented through the perspective of the vengeful character. A direct and almost constant third person view, we the viewers take every step with Johnny. From the moment of his re-birth, as he makes his way out of his burial grounds, the movie puts us in the character's shoes.
Set entirely in and around the forest laden greenery of rural Canada, the nature which the undead golem wades through can be deceptively distracting. Mesmerisingly haunting, we are lulled into a false sense of ease as the monster trudges through peaceful, unspoiled nature. Slow yet unyielding, the main character moves forward unthwarted, unstoppable. Johnny’s sole goal is to retrieve what’s his, the only thing seemingly with any meaning to him and there seems to be nothing that can get in his way.
A scene for the sole purpose of displacing any confusion, filling out the missing story elements, the group of friends sit round a fire the night after one of them has removed Johnny’s locked from his grave, where Ehren (Sam Roulston) tells the others of a local boy who had perished some 60 years ago when the surrounding area was nothing but lumberjacks and logging.
It is revealed that Johnny died as a result of the workers hating his father, a local merchant who gouged the workers for basic necessities. Resulting in an accidental and violent death, the boy had been laid to rest in the woods only to re-awaken after being disturbed.
Working his way through the group of peers, Johnny utilizes an unmatched and brutal force in search of his mother’s locket. Rather than jumping out at people in the middle of the night, the film veers towards a more simple and unforced approach. Johnny is ever present as he marches on, stalking and watching. Rather than jumping out at people, he meets them unexpectedly. Approaching with an even pace, the group of friends meet their doom as the unwavering force continues to pace on.
Not giving way to chase or hunting, but rather as an inevitable and unavoidable presence, Johnny mows down whoever stands in his way, as a force of nature. Coming for the individuals one at a time, the film may be muted in terms of screams and loud tension building music, but it does not skimp on gore. With each death bloodier than the last, ‘In a Violent Nature’ truly earns it’s title and then some.
With a single member of the group wising up before meeting Johnny head on, Kris (Andrea Pavlovic) makes her way into the ‘final girl’ pantheon. As she watches the last of her friends face Johnny, only to be repeatedly bludgeoned to death, she runs through the night and flags down a car as she reaches a quiet dirt road. Lying about having escaped an animal attack, the driver tries to keep up Kris’ spirits.
Retelling an old story of her brother as he escaped being mauled by a bear, the not-so-subtle manner in which the story concludes on the ever-present and lurking nature of, well nature, ‘In a Violent Nature’ does deliver on the final freak-out factor, but in a more subtle and continuously haunting manner, perhaps more upsetting than a jump-scare that plagues every other modern horror feature.
Singular in it’s approach, ‘In a Violent Nature’ delivers a purely subversive effort in the established genre. Serving the purpose of delivering a new experience, it may not be what we’re used to when it comes to scary movies, but it establishes itself as unique and effective in producing a new and incomparable experience, allowing us to see the horror through the perpetrator’s eyes, allowing us to re-evaluate everything we think we know about how and why horror manifests and how it affects us.
Score: 3/4
Comentarios