In a Violent Nature is smart, gory and a little too subversive for its own good

A gaunt, pallid-faced man relentlessly stalks, torments and terrifies his victims. He is cursed with a sociopathic lack of feeling, driven by seriously traumatic mommy issues and seems to be a real fan of trees.

But enough about Dear Evan Hansen. We're here to talk about In a Violent Nature, a horror whose social media marketing largely sells the movie as an "ambient slasher" told, uniquely, from the killer's perspective a loose Jason Voorhees analogue whose hulking, meat hook-toting self simply swaps Friday the 13th's vintage goalie's mask for a vintage fireman's and calls it a day.

But that's not to say this is a shallow ripoff far from it. Written and directed by Chris Nash and produced by fellow Canadian Peter Kuplowsky, In a Violent Nature is as up to its ears in horror chops, convolutedly gruesome kills and artistic leanings as The House that Jack Built, Hannibal or True Detective's good seasons.

But unfortunately for us all, subversions do not a classic make.

In a Violent Nature is a cool subversion of horror, but without actually saying all that much or rather, getting it across effectively. And an arthouse slasher without a substantive message is, in the end, just a less entertaining slasher.

In a Violent Nature's plot on paper is relatively thin. Far in the remote-enough mining towns of northern Ontario, a cursed corpse, Johnny, rises from his grave disturbed by a group of brash city kids too cool to follow the local customs. They drink, smoke, listen to rock music and generally commit all the unforgivable sins necessary for deserving death according to an audience.

Johnny then spends the next 90 minutes tromping down trails, staring at meadows and pulling people's heads through the place where their spines used to be.

If it all sounds a bit similar to half a dozen other chainsaw-heavy franchises, that's intentional. As a genre built so heavily on formula, tradition and tropes, horror more than any other genre leans into its own stereotypes to comment on them. It's evident everywhere from Better Watch Out's goofy take on the home invasion subgenre, to the dual 2015 releases Final Girl and The Final Girls, both making fun of that selfsame trope and both, somehow, managing to star Vancouver's Alex Ludwig.

In a Violent Nature uses its slasher-in-the-wilderness signposts to do some expectation inversions of its own.

The first is its ambient atmosphere. Like a honestly, only slightly more bloody Sasquatch Sunset, In a Violent Nature pitches its Great Lakes setting as a character as much as, or perhaps more than, the people. We're treated to frequent, and frequently beautiful, shots of golden hour light filtering through trees, peaceful ponds and miles and miles of virtually undisturbed forests.

It's all a pointed part of the strategy here. Nash has written that he sees Johnny as "an articulation of the environment, an unforgiving force of nature."

And as Johnny a rotting corpse with the same top speed as a failing bulldozer stumbles after his able-bodied victims, their incredibly poor decisions drives home the point: he is an inescapable disaster, a sort of personification of fate that they are powerless to escape. The actors hamming up their trips over branches and blowing off obvious signs of danger are just the icing on the horror cake.

Keeping the spotlight on Johnny is important too. Because with, what Nash calls the "cannon fodder" of typical slasher movies out of our way, Johnny is now the centre of our observation. And after an hour and a half spent staring silently at the back of his maggoty head, a bit of Stockholm Syndrome might convince the audience he's just as omnipresent and permanent as the outdoors.

And there is a qualified sort of success in that strategy. Seeing his victims' attempts to survive from Johnny's perspective does dredge up a half-realized question about our need to control versus our fear of letting go. Contrasted against the sorts of movies In a Violent Nature is directly riffing on, it's possible to work out a stunted thesis in favour of blissfully accepting that which cannot be changed, instead of burning yourself out trying to throw Evil Dead's Necronomicon into the fireplace.

But in the end, it's all too hand-wavy to stand on its own. Choosing to make a slasher from a killer's perspective is an interesting idea when pitched around the smoke pit, but in practice it removes the central tenet of the genre: The way these movies generate suspense is by their audiences witnessing and identifying with the fear and fight to survive experienced by its cannon fodder.

If we instead walk with the killer, we're just mindlessly checking kills off a to-do list.

Unless your interest is in a snuff film or the exploitative voyeurism true crime is routinely blamed for (but far less guilty of), the shift only dulls excitement. It's especially true in a storytelling practice where we are, by necessity, denied access to our villain's reasoning, rationalizations or internal struggles.

In contrast, something like 2011's deeply disturbing Michael challenges us to follow its titular villain, a man who has kidnapped a child, while exploring the true horrors that drive him. While Chronicle questioned what superpowers given to real (angry, self-hating) young men could bring out in them. All while getting an actual narrative look under the hood.

In a Violent Nature, meanwhile, takes the subgenre's least interesting archetype the mindless slasher to follow as a sort of gimmick.

In a genre so demanding of surprise and innovation, it makes sense to look for them to prove your story moves things along. But in a post-The Cabin in the Woods world, simply pointing out how the sausage gets made isn't enough. Instead like The Invisible Man's extrapolation of domestic violence or Get Out's handling of racial prejudice viewing our actual lives through the lens of horror gives more to work with.

There In a Violent Nature falls somewhat short, mistaking "ambient" for "impactful," in a space where success is measured by entertainment.

Still, that only means it fails to be perfect; the clear craft and vision not to mention an innovative, hinted-at storytelling style still makes it more than worth watching. It just may have been more worth watching if it had more story to watch.