After sitting in a score-less, 90-minute slasher-in-the-woods thriller, one of the scariest things were the walks to my car and back to my place. Now accustomed to no theme music, the killer could be anywhere!
In a Violent Nature will absolutely polarize the horror community. For starters, you GOTTA love Slashers. Even more so, the Friday the 13th and Hatchet franchises. You also GOTTA have patience, show indifference to an unoriginal plot, accept its 4:3 ratio and half-suspend your disbelief.
I can see some people hating this. Heck, about 4 people walked out of the small theatre I was in with only a few people attending to begin with. Not much happens, it can drag and there's...soooo....much...walking. I even felt like I did a workout following around the killer so much.
The positives, on the other hand, were good. This takes the Killer POV to the next level. For the grand majority of the feature, you will truly feel what it's like to be Jason Voorhees, minus the teleportation. So, if you ever wanted to see what's it's like from his perspective in the woods while he stalks his victims, here you go.
And while they did try and make it realistic - again, no score, no teleporting, lotza walking/stalking, this killer is still a close relative of Friday the 13th's Jason and Hatchet's Victor Crowley. Kinda reminded me of Disney's Pocahontas where they tried to make it realistic with no talking animals, but still had a talking tree.
The synopsis is basic: Simple-minded killer in the woods plows through any human in his path until someone tries to stop him. You're not watching this for the plot, as in most Slashers, but the gimmick. And this one is merely following around the killer as he stalks and what he hears, sees or senses as his next victim.
I'm iffy on this one. I loved the concept, but I hated the ratio - even though I understood it. I'd still like to see it in widescreen. (This goes for Zach Synder's Justice League as well. Black & White is barely tolerable these days for a film technique, but 4:3 screen ratio is intolerable.) I loved the graphic kills and suspense - where's the killer now?!, but I hated the long, long walks. (We get it after a while!) And that ending. Whew.
It's too bad I'm completely split with this one. I wanted more and if they were going for realism, they should've stuck to their guns.
***
Final Thoughts: One thing this thoroughly reminded me of was: the Friday the 13th video game. During the pandemic, I bought my first Xbox SPECIFICALLY for this game. Unfortunately, I only played it a few times as I couldn't get the controls right/kills down in time and I heard recently they just up and discontinued the game. Regardless, following around this movie's killer for long periods of time made me recall the few times I played the game. (And not in the movie's favor, the game looked a heck of alot better than what I saw in this movie.)