I will give a movie a lot of leeway if it’s trying to do something interesting.*

Thankfully, I didn’t need to give In a Violent Nature much latitude. Despite what you might read on IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes (seriously, people have no patience), this is a clever bit of filmmaking that unabashedly plays with the tropes of the slasher genre while being tense, scary and extremely gory.

 Like most slasher films, the plot is simple (and a bit silly). Set in the forests of Canada, a college student (or teen, but the students all look like they’re in their early twenties) removes a golden locket from a collapsed fire tower, unwittingly resurrecting the rotting corpse of Johnny, a young man (intellectually disabled) who was brutally murdered six decades previously. Searching for the locket (it’s his mum’s), Johnny goes on a rampage, hunting the college student and his beer-guzzling and bong-smoking mates.

 The rather brilliant conceit ** is that we’re following Johnny, not the college students. When I say we’re following Johnny, I mean that literally. A good chunk of the film is watching him walk through the forest, with the camera focused on Johnny’s back. This is the source of most of the criticism—it’s dull watching Johnny lumber through the forest. I loved it. There’s something hypnotic in Johnny’s monotonous gait, only broken up when Johnny does something incredibly violent. And the gore is extreme. Like all these films, there’s a centrepiece kill where most of the money has been spent. And it’s… Terrifier levels of ick.***

The concluding twenty minutes are incredible. Nash’s subversion**** of the final girl, the way he teases us, playing with our expectations, is genuinely thrilling. Again, the audience was not impressed. But honestly, fudge them. Filmmakers (and authors) who are willing to push narrative boundaries are the ones I want to follow. 

 Not every aspect of the film works. A couple of characters do idiotic things. But this is a slasher film, and some conventions always apply. If you can stomach***** gore, then watch it.

 *Is it me, or is horror the home for experimental filmmaking? Right now, I’m finding the most inventive films to be horror films—although I see fewer than 35 movies a year, so what do I know?

**Which must have been done before, yeah? This can’t be the first time.

***Like Damien Leone, Nash’s expertise is in special effects, and it shows.

****Everything is subversive these days to the degree that not being subversive is subversive. But this is the real deal.

*****Saying “stomach” will be much funnier if you’ve seen the film.