In a Violent Nature

Mr. Pat

28 minutes ago

6 min read

I'm going to say something that's not exactly an original take; I really don't like Liberty Biberty. Outside of being annoying, I don't like when companies use something as a joke in one commercial and think, "Hey, I think we got something here!" Car Fax did it with the Car Fox. They had a commercial where someone asked to see the Car Fax, but the salesman brought out a stuffed fox and said it was the Car Fox. It didn't take long for that stupid fox to become the mascot.

Liberty Mutual must have thought having that guy trip over every word was hilarious because it now has that stupid yellow ball. Not only is it lazy, but it's not very creative in the first place. I know people say any publicity is good publicity, but from what I've seen with Liberty Biberty, it invokes a fury in people. Scrolling through social media, I've never seen such vitriol towards a cartoon fuzzball. Not that I think that Liberty Biberty doesn't deserve it; it's just interesting to see how many people really hate that asshole. But I digress, you're here to read about...

In a Violent Nature (2023)

I appreciate when horror movies take big swings. We kicked off the month with a movie told from the perspective of a dog, which I really, really enjoyed. Then there was this movie that's been on my radar for some time. The internet raved about it, and I was very intrigued because it's told from the perspective of an undead killer. When you watch a Friday the 13th or a Halloween movie, the humans are just kind of there; the real star of the show is the mute monster that's stalking them. So what happens when you make your mute monster the actual star of the movie? Well... let's talk about the movie first.

We start with a slow-moving shot of a wooded area that comes to rest upon a post with a necklace dangling from it, and then sits there... and sits there. Then we get dialogue of a small group discussing something before we see a hand snatch the necklace and pull it away, and then the camera sits there... again!

At one point I thought my computer had frozen because the camera just stays on the jewelry for like two minutes without any sound or any movement to let you know that the movie was actually going on. At this point, I was getting flashbacks to We're All Going to the World's Fair and Skinamarink. Movies that pad out the runtime by giving you a static shot of nothing relevant to the plot that artsy types go nuts over. I tried to ignore it, but for a movie with a 94-minute runtime, there is a LOT of time used on things that don't advance the plot. Like the long shots of him just walking in the woods.

Speaking of the plot, here's how it goes. Some cannon fodder with the WORST survival instincts decide to camp in an absolutely beautiful forest. As an aside, there's a lot I didn't like about this movie, but the setting and the way the movie shows off its beauty is top-notch. Anyways, that necklace I mentioned earlier? It was the only thing keeping Johnny resting in his grave. There's a whole backstory about Johnny that pays homage to every campfire story ever told, while the movie borrows heavily from Friday the 13th, almost like you could swear you're watching a knockoff of Friday the 13th Part V. TLDR; Johnny likes the necklace; if you take the necklace, he gets really sour and goes on a murder rampage.

That's the plot; it's razor-thin, but that's a feature, not a bug. The makers of the movie understand people don't care about story when there's a big guy in a mask slicing people up. But the movie takes that idea and runs with it long after its legs have already given out. For starters, there's no soundtrack. There's no eerie music to make you feel a certain way; it's all ambient noise, and it's mostly his footsteps because the majority of the runtime is him plodding around trees. Plus, because this is told from Johnny's perspective, and he's not out to make friends, we know next to nothing about these people. It's a cool idea in theory, but in this case, it's bad in execution. At least Halloween or Friday the 13th will give you something to make characters stand out. This had nothing, so I felt nothing when they met their, oftentimes frustrating, end.

Here's another thing: one of the things that makes Jason and Michael Myers so fun is how they stalk their prey. With Michael especially, we have no idea where he is most of the time, but we do know he's watching. He could be anywhere, and part of the fun is that moment when he finally does reveal himself. In this movie, we know where Johnny is 95% of the time because the camera follows him at all times. It takes every last bit of suspense out of the movie. In a Violent Nature takes all the fun out of the B movie, and that's unforgivable. Plus, there's no music to set the mood, so there's no emotional payoff to anything because the buildup is nonexistent; things just happen, and then you wait for the next thing to happen because you're going to be treated to Johnny tromping around in the woods until he accidentally stumbles into where he needs to be for the "plot" to move forward.

Which brings me to the characters. You have no reason to care for these people. All you get are snippets of conversations, and that's it. There's one character who gets a little screen time by telling the story of Johnny, and we learn the only thing about the entire group from this talk. We learned that the father of the exposition dump character used to work on the mountain with Johnny and his late father. That's it. I know in slasher movies these characters are usually just tropes waiting to be killed, but at least we get something about them to make us take notice. I couldn't tell any of these people apart, except for the storyteller because he was the chubbier one.

Not only that, these people practically leapt onto whatever sharp object that Johnny was holding at the time. There's a scene were blonde girl is doing yoga near a cliff, and she turns around to see Johnny right in front of her. Does she fight? Does she run to the left or to the right? If you answered, "She stands completely still with a resigned look on her face and lets him brutally murder her," then you win the prize! Then there's the guy who sneaks up behind Johnny to create a distraction, but makes sure he's easily in stabbing distance so Johnny doesn't have to work. Then there's the park ranger who's wrestling with Johnny over a gun, and Johnboy crushes his fingers. Instead of getting up and running away, he slowly crawls away as Johnny casually walks over to him and breaks his spine. For some reason, he was acting like the bones in his fingers were connected to his spine and caused him to be paralyzed from the waist down. These people are literally asking to die, and I hated every. single. one. of. them.

One more complaint that no one but me will care about. I'm a news producer; I spent most of my day writing scripts, so in movies my ears always perk up whenever there's a reporter or an anchor giving some type of news report. In the beginning, ol' Johnny is walking through this jerk's house, and the TV is on the news, and the anchor is talking about schools and says something along the lines of, "The district decided to amalgamate the schools." In a movie about an undead killer with a necklace fascination, that sentence being read on air is the most unbelievable thing.

To be fair, the movie isn't all terrible, but close to it. I already mentioned how gorgeous the setting is, but the kills are pretty gnarly and imaginative; even if the human characters practically let it happen, and the one that's set up as the most brutal takes so long to set up that it's a bit of a letdown when it actually happens because it's nowhere near as cool as how you'd picture it playing out.

I understand In a Violent Nature is very likely to have strong defenders, but it's definitely not for me. The movie took a big swing, but, in my opinion, it was a big miss. Plus, his mask looks stupid.

Other than that, the movie's great!