Sundance Film Festival 2024 Review – Writer-director Chris Nash attempts to reinvent the slasher genre with his new film In A Violent Nature. Instead of the common point of view that follows a group of teens being picked off one by one, this movie flips the script to tell things from the killer’s point of view. The effect is a novel as we follow a nameless beast of a human and look over his shoulder as he stalks random victims in the woods. Yet it ultimately drains most of the suspense that is usually found in the genre. Thankfully there are enough wonderfully gory kills and plenty of clean production to make In A Violent Nature fun.

The film begins with a staid shot from inside a ramshackle cabin in the middle of the forest. Voices are heard off-screen and we hear two hunters approaching. One of them discovers a gold chain and locket hanging from a pipe and they swipe it. VERY bad move. This awakens a nameless monster that awakens to begin his rampage. The opening scene sets up pacing and expectation as we watch the killer lumber through the forest until he reaches the hunter’s house on the edge of the trees. Things get ugly and like a dog following a random squirrel, the killer spots a group of campers heading to the cabins nearby. Then off he goes towards them.

What Nash and his crew fully clarify is what the killer in any of these types of movies is doing in between the showy murders. Walking. Lots of walking. Following the killer in the woods around is interesting, but it’s a better idea in theory than execution. Imagine if Speilberg had just followed Jaws around in the ocean until he ate stuff.  Yes, I am reducing things a bit but there is little suspense from this point of view.

I admit though that I had a lot of fun watching In A Violent Nature.  The practical effects featured in the kill scenes are unbelievably brutal, including the most impossible yoga pose ever created. This is some graphic, gory stuff that had the audience that I was a part of wincing in agony. Good times. Capturing the forest in various light levels is the fine work of photographer Pierce Derks. His ability to deliver the chromatic nuance of the forest is only matched by his ability to get every spurt of blood in detail. Tim Atkins and Michelle Hwu create a character of their own with sound design that I can only call Horror ASMR.

In A Violent Nature is a bloody homage to the slasher genre that earnestly attempts to cover the typical killing spree from another angle. This is a cool idea but with this particular approach, we are mostly robbed of suspense. It’s only toward the end of the film that the tension is brought to almost unbearable levels with a simple change in who we follow to the conclusion. Nash and crew are to be commended for successfully breathing new life into a beloved horror sub-genre. If we could make this approach as terrifying as it is fun to watch we would have lightning in a bottle.

7 Out of 10