How tense can a horror movie really be if we basically know the location of the killer the whole time? This is the core question at play in Chris Nash's In a Violent Nature , a slasher that wears its masked murderer firmly on its screen. A campfire kill-a-thon with a twist, the film is shot largely from the perspective of the killer himself, with the viewer following in the third person as Johnny (Ry Barret) stomps through the woods like a bashed-up, vengeful Terminator. It's an interesting idea, but does it make for a fun movie? The central story is pretty stock horror fare: A young group of friends camping in the Canadian wilderness stumble across something strange in the woods that they should absolutely leave alone.
In this case, it's a golden locket hanging next to a ruined fire tower. One of them makes the always-stupid mistake of taking said locket, awakening an undead killer who bursts from the earth to get his precious jewellery back. What follows is 90 minutes of beautiful landscape shots, teen tension, campfire stories, and a series of deaths so gory they'll almost make you laugh out loud.
If you looked at the plot alone, you'd say In a Violent Nature is about as cookie cutter as a slasher movie can get. But of course, the narrative isn't really the point here. It's the style.
Centring the killer's point of view is a gamble that turns the whole genre on its head while paying homage to killer POV classics like Halloween, Friday the 13th , Deep Red , and countless ot.