‘In a violent nature’ switches up the typical slasher perspective telling the films story from the perspective of the killer, rather than the victims. The result, an unusually violent slasher movie with all the hallmarks of the 80s classics – warts and all.
The films plot is loose to say the least. Essentially, a killer is resurrected when the neckless of his mother is taken from his hidden grave by a passerby. Renewed and preprepared with face obscuring head attire, he sets off on his singular mission to retrieve the stolen jewellery, cutting a bloody swathe through anyone unlucky enough to get in his way.
One the movie got going it reminded me a lot of the YouTube videos which focus on what NPCs get up to off screen in video games – and the answer is typically not a lot.
In what is perhaps the films weakest element, the absence of any real purpose to the killers screentime causes the pace of the movie to significantly dip in parts. I’ll accept that typical slasher movies are hardly highbrow affairs, however the better ones have some decent character arcs going on with plenty of vibrancy, atmosphere or delinquent distractions to keep the pace moving between the stalk and slash set pieces. The killer in this movie just walks… a lot.
Admittedly the switching of perspectives means that we get to hear snippets of his future victims lives before they are snuffed out, and initially this helped to carry the film and establish the concept, but before long it runs somewhat out of steam from this regard.
Thankfully, however, in an acknowledgement of sorts to its limitation, ‘In a violent nature’ falls back onto the genres trump card – and that’s creativity in kills and plenty of gore.
‘In a violent nature’ does this in spades – with one kill in particular destined to end up on endless ‘top slasher kill’ lists everywhere. The effects look great, and whilst there aren’t huge numbers of deaths on screen, those that are shown pack a punch.
As the killer is as indiscriminate with his choice of weapon as he is with who he kills with it, there is plenty of variation throughout the movie and each one he uses to maximum gratuitous effect.
In someways, without much else driving the film forwards, ‘In a violent nature’ is perhaps more of a montage of kills than most movies of the genre. But hey, you double down on what you brought…
Overall, ‘In a violent nature’ is well worth checking out for fans of slasher movies, especially if you are a fan of the less popularised slashers such as ‘Madman’ and ‘The Burning’ as this movie has a similar tone and pace to that. The film stands out in recent times as its definitely more brutal than it is aiming for pure entertainment, and the twist in perspective does just enough to keep it fresh.
