At this point in life end of the year Holiday like Xmas is more for my kids rather than me so once its over its all back to regular schedule but the rest of the world is not and towards the end of the year there are less releases so I have been grinding on that bucket list of movies I wanted to watch during the year but there were other better releases so I kept them aside for latter, without much to watch last night I sat down to "In a Violent Nature (2024)" its a movie that left me with so many things to say and mix feelings about it, this movie premiered in early 2024 and went to Sundance and it did grab interest from the audience based on its new approach to the slasher film.
Rottentomatoes Rating
This is not the ordinary horror movie where young people are being hunted by a psycho and they scream most of the time, this time we get to witness most of the action through the hunter eyes, that is the killer referred to as Johnny, roaming the Canadian stretch in search of his prey. The whole thing goes like an observer watching somebody play a horror game, which is quite strange but makes some sort of sense and its different because its a more like leave me alone and I'll stay away but Johnny awakes from a dormant state after some college students take a golden locket from his burial area. Johnny had been buried and is then resurrected because these morons took his beloved locket, as the story explains it was put in place to keep his soul at rest although he was not violent its more like revenge for who ever takes anything from him. From there, we follow him as he walk into the forest, massacring everybody on sight. The fun thing is that the entire story is told from Johnny’s point of view, watching how he adapts to use every opportunity to kill people.
The movie does give some backdrop story but the events are very straight forward, Johnny wants his locket back and will kill anyone who stands in his way, but what makes this different is how we learn about the story. Some of the things that are being develop during the movie include something like the White Pines Slaughter and there was Johnny, a mentally disabled man who was killed 60 years ago, this was not his first awakening.
We also come across this Park Ranger who seems to know all about Johnny and he confirm this is not the first time the two have met through his story. It has the feel of being in a series, when in fact it isn’t, it’s like watching the third movie in a series without having seen the first two. Across a good part of the movie there are clues and mentions that tells Johnny story of how he suffer from bulling and abuse from other based on his condition and how his death / murder, even though it was an accident it was fueled by hate for him and his father from others in the town, so yes Johnny is coming back for anyone who takes from him even after death but if they just leave him alone there is a good chance nothing will go wrong.
The murders in this film are just another level and were the main attraction as expected been very very bloody but mostly very clever almost like Mortal Kombat fatality movies, there is one scene of a girl called Aurora doing Yoga close to a cliff that is scary and amusing at the same time just trying to imagine the amount of strength to pull such move, Johnny pulls this combo on here where he stab her on the stomach and then on her head with his hook to finally pulling her head, damn thing was more that I could stomach, the kind of movie that keeps you interested but have to pause through this scenes, the violence is nasty and right on your face, everything in between the kills is slow and probably what might make it boring for some, great kills scenes but lacks on the story and with such nasty violence is something that will have people shut it down before it ends.
Ry Barrett plays Johnny and his character does not have much screen time as I would want it, not like other horror movie characters that are constantly hunting, in a way this is understandable since Johnny is more of a passive killer because he only hunts when people take from him. He walks with this slow pace, after all he is dead and is more dangerous than if he was charging around like a madman. The other factor that takes form the movie is that the rest of the cast felt they were there just to be the victims and didn't add much to the story, another movie on the same level was "The Strangers: Chapter 1" where the victims are constantly active and are the ones who tell the story and on top the killers are active too, this time its Johnny the main star and the one doing everything, one man show.
The movie's shot in this old school 4:3 aspect ratio, making everything look much closer and a bit more constricting with this two black bars on its sides so its not your monitor or settings, its just how the movie is. I really enjoy how still today horror movies most of the time try to give this 80s to 90s vibe in some way, keeping things classic and rooted to such great era of horror movies when everything was less digital or in now days less AI and more practical effect where it was more difficult to master the craft. I like how the movie also bring this unnatural camera angles, making it different both from Johnny perspective and how some of the shots are also from far trying to still give this wide angle on the current format. The audience had a lot of do with the movie, very little music but a lot of ambient sound, almost like you can close your eyes and have a good idea of what is going on, which makes everything look more realistic and feel awkward.
The movie does a great job at telling the story from Johnny point of view, some people like it because it is so different from other slasher movies, but I think there might be a part of the audience who consider it plain monotonous because of the characters walking and the lack of motivation or plan, becoming a slow burning pace and the classic jump scares is not for everyone specially now days when horror movies are moving more into the psychological aspect rather the possessions and jump scares, been a slasher movie I can be less forgiven specially when it is trying to be an old school type of horror movie at the same time with its format and backstory.
After watching In a Violent Nature I am still not quite sure whether I liked it or whether I just like the idea behind it or how creative where the killing scenes, almost the same situation when the movie gives it all on the trailer or is a one scene movie type. The ending is a little awkward, like the script didn’t know how to end the movie, there is this long monologue that spells everything out, which was not how the rest of the movie manage the backstory. It is as if they doubted their idea could achieve its target and thought people wouldn’t understand what was being offered without everything being explained to them little by little, giving a metaphor of who Johnny is like, in this case compared to a beast that never gets to complete his killing spree since there is always one survivor that in this case was Kris, other times there were survivors too like on the second one it was the Ranger himself who survive in the 80s.
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