A man in a mask is out to get you; that’s the basic drill, and horror fans know it – they love the drill, they worship the drill, they have an endless, insatiable appetite for the drill. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t appreciate innovative variations on the premise: an original choice of weapon, perhaps, or particularly haunting motivation, or indeed a memorable mask. Chris Nash’s low-budget slasher qualifies as one of the more interesting formal variations; the weapons are not unusual (hooks feature prominently), the motivation is fairly standard (a Jason-style past wrong), and a fun but not that outlandish mask (a vintage firefighter’s mask). But it’s the way in which the movie is filmed that sets it apart.
The visual grammar and technique throughout is a complete contrast to almost everything you might expect. Where Halloween’s iconic score followed Michael Myers wherever he went, In a Violent Nature is almost devoid of music; set almost entirely outdoors in a national park, you can hear birds tweeting and not much else. The film is fond of a static camera too, with long, locked-off wide shots and slow pans replacing the standard roving or hectic horror visuals. Nash doesn’t use editing or framing to try to hide the killer; you can see him coming a mile off, often in daylight. Horror is a genre with strong heavy metal connections, but this is the acoustic, unplugged cover version: it hits all the same beats in the melody, but without the power chords.
What In a Violent Nature does have is quality gore effects. There is one particular moment that would go straight into any list of most memorable horror-movie kill shots. As befits the house style of the film, nothing is left to the imagination, but the effect is matter-of-fact rather than harrowing. This does suggest one issue with this approach to horror: it isn’t scary. Gruesome and disgusting, yes, but not scary; if you’re looking to get your nerves actively shredded, you might have to seek out other men in masks to accept that particular mission. But from a horror fan’s point of view, this is an absolutely fascinating experiment with form.