Have you watched a slasher film and wondered how a lumbering, slow-walking villain just happens to always catch up to the victim? If they aren’t tripping over something or hiding behind a tree, they are running full speed in another direction. It just so happens someone like Jason Vorhees catches up to them anyway. Writer/director Chris Nash took that premise and built it out in the film experience with ‘In A Violent Nature.’ It’s a slasher in the classic sense with all its drawn inspirations, but it could also be a nature documentary. Instead of centering on the young protagonists, the camera meticulously follows Johnny (Ry Barrett), who returns from the dead to write a simple wrong.
Dawning an old firefighter mask and grabbing any resolute weapon he can get his hands on, the audience follows him through the Algoma District woods in Ontario, Canada, with every step. ‘In a Violent Nature’s approach is that of a subsequent film in a series Nash knows the audience would be aware of the homages it has built itself from. Heavy steps on top of leaves serve as our soundtrack and brief eavesdropping on our unsuspecting victims. Once you are lulled in the false sense of security, Johnny quickly takes them out.
I spoke to Nash about being inspired by classic slasher lore and setting specific parameters for ‘In A Violent Nature’ to be a different experience.
Seeing the visceral reactions at Sundance was interesting on two fronts—both when the kills happen and in the premise that this slasher takes. You mentioned you wanted to approach ‘In A Violent Nature’ from the perspective of a third or fourth franchise installment.
So, it’s almost like Batman exhaustion, you know? How many times are we going to get the Batman origin story? We’re like; you should know who this character is without any real introduction to him because we are relying on tropes of other slashers. We’re ripping a piece of ‘Friday The 13th,’ ‘The Burning,’ ‘My Bloody Valentine,’ and anything we can think of. We felt it was unnecessary to go into this film as it was new. Why not treat it as if it is a part 4 or part 5 and have another batch of hapless victims going through the whole experience?
It’s ambient, but a small amount of lore is introduced at the beginning of the film. There could be a decision in a future installment in which you go forward or backward in time. Was that a consideration as you were crafting this story?
At the time, I wasn’t thinking anything like that. ‘In A Violent Nature’ was made to be a stand-alone experiment. With the reaction and interest that we’ve gotten, I’ve been thinking about different ways to take it if we were to do any next installment in it. We would take the same approach as our original thesis of taking what you would think would be a very incompatible film style and putting that into the slasher world. That’s probably where we’d go if we were to do anything else. Live within the world we’re creating, but not retread the same territory.
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There has always been this running joke about Jason Voorhees and how long it would take him to catch up to his victims. How does he catch up to any of these people? Is he the best power walker ever? ‘In A Violent Nature’ plays into that from Johnny’s perspective. We are with him every step of the way. An aspect of ‘In A Violent Nature’ feels like it’s also in on the joke.
At what point is this movie just a giant troll? I don’t know. If you were to look at it that way, it could be. But I was much more focused on the aesthetics of it being pleasant. I wanted everything that’s not the murders to be a really pleasant experience to sit in – whether it’s just walking through the woods at different times and settings that we have. Even the post moments after the kills, I wanted it to be a very nice film and have that just punctuated with these scenes of violence.
In A Violent Nature / Photo Credit: IFC Films
