I was lucky enough to see a screening of In A Violent Nature a little while back and I haven’t stopped thinking about it. It comes out in theaters at the end of the month and then they’re putting it on Shudder. I loved it. It’s weird. It’s experimental. It’s Canadian. The horror movie’s marketing describes it as an “ambient slasher.” Fans have said that it’s a horror movie from the killer’s perspective. Both are somewhat accurate but notexactlyright for describing the movie. I think a better way to put it is that watching In A Violent Nature is like watching a live action version of the killer’s parts ofDead by Daylight. It’s glorious. And horrifying.
Like Dead by Daylight (andThe QuarryandUntil Dawnfor that matter), In A Violent Nature takes a lot of inspiration from Friday the 13th. Like alot. The movie kind of assumes you know the genre so it can move on with its art house terror. There is a spooky, abandoned park. There are young people camping where they shouldn’t. Through some real bad luck, they accidentally wake a giant, hulking undead figure (this time ‘Johnny’ rather than ‘Jason’). The campers are slaughtered in horrible ways as the few survivors attempt to stop the menace. And so on, and so forth. You know the tropes.
The difference here is that the vast majority of the movie follows Johnny, not the campers. And outside of one or two moments, it’s not verycinematicwhen we follow Johnny. There is barely any dialogue. There is no music outside of light sound coming from houses. There are long stretches of Johnny just walking through the woods. The upshot of this is that we’re usually with Johnny when he comes upon a victim. Rather than a jump scare from the slasher popping out of nowhere, we’re forced to watch him slouching towards the next kill. A few people have described it like a horror-movie-nature-documentary and that’s not too far off, if still imperfect.
In fact, it really feels like watching a game where someone is playing the killer. I’m not the only one who thought this when I saw it. A friend of mine - who’s not into video games - whispered the same thing to me with the assumption that I’d appreciate it more than him. Which I did. At points we even get something in the movie close to a third-person, over-the-shoulder camera. And being with Johnny as he moves gives far more weight and reality to his presence as a threat. He may be an undead killer summoned by some sort of ill-defined magic, but he also has towalkto the shed,finda wall, andgrabthe weapon off the wall. It doesn’t help our unease that we also follow himafterthe murder as well.
Again, it feels like watching someonepick one of the store-brand killers in Dead by Daylight. If you’ve played that game - and especially played as a monster in it - you’ll be familiar with the lumbering motion of The Trapper. It takes time for him to move from point to point. It takes effort to kill the victims and hit all the goals. He may be extremely strong, but he isalsoextremely slow. As a player looking over his shoulder, we get a sense of immense, unstoppable power.
But as a viewer looking over his shoulder, we lose hope and empathy. We’re with Johnny so long that we identify with him more than the victims. We’re not moresympatheticto him, but we’re on his journey and not theirs. We don’t know anything about the cool girl or the stoner guy or the flirty friends. We see them, Johnny sees them, but to him they’re simply victims to kill - no different than the opposing team in a multiplayer game of DBD. It’s frightening in a different way. We’re not looking on as lovable characters get killed by some force out to getthem. Johnny doesn’t care. He just kills the way we kill in a game. There’s even one death that feels a bit like a character caught in a glitch. That’s not really a spoiler since you’ll have no idea what I mean until you get there.
In A Violent Nature Has A Different Kind Of Kills
Meanwhile, the kills areintenselygross. Yet following the monster gives them a different feel too. They’re awful. They’re hideous. One or two of themgenuinelybothered me. But when you’re with the slasher himself the majority of the movie, they feel more like Mortal Kombat fatalities. They’re disgusting, but you know they’re coming. Part of the appeal of the violence in Mortal Kombat is the understanding itwillbe gross. Not the fear itmighthappen at all.
On the other hand, in most slasher films, the kill comes as a big surprise. That’s the whole thing! Someone bursts through the wall like Kool-Aid Man and strangles a camper. Here, In A Violent Nature, Johnny’s methodical approach to killing builds an anticipation of violence that’s less shocking and more slow-burn disturbing. In fact, one of the film’s only surprise kills is also one of its least horrid - Johnny simply reacts very quickly in a scene and you’re like, “Oh! He sure did that!” The same you might with a lucky shot in a game.
I play more horror games than watch horror movies. A lot of this has to do with agency: I find horror where Icanrun from the terror more engaging than the ones where I can’t. I like that my character has a chance of surviving if I play it right. It’s not that I’d do a better job in real life than the victims andFinal Girls- I definitely wouldn’t - but I weirdly get frustrated watching a lot of slasher-style movies because it’s all out of my control. I’m used to seeing every step of the action and having some impact on the ending, whether I’m the bad guy or the good guy.
In A Violent Nature turns this on its head. It’s like a livestream of an actual undead monster. We’re simply looking over a monster’s shoulder as he wins the game - and wins it over and over and over again. I’ve seen a lot of movies that were turned into video games. I’ve seen a lot of video games that were turned into movies. But this is the first movie I’ve seen that feels like a Let’s Play by a top-ranked Dead by Daylight fan.
