In A Violent Nature-Chris Nash

In A Violent Nature is Terrifier with two simple elements of exchange: instead of face paint, the killer wears a bag over his head, and instead of taking place in the city, In A Violent Nature is set in the woods. I'm not sure what these directors of human vivisection exploitation believe they are bringing to the table that is unique, but they come out every year unabated it seems. I'm not opposed to gore when the film calls for it. Men Behind The Sun, Dawn of The Dead, Suspiria, Audition, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, and Maniac— several titles I hold near and dear to my heart—speak as testimonials to this fact. But when the movie called for blood to spill, there was some accredited merit behind the reasoning. The writers had built up plausible storylines to necessitate going to that level. But, much like Terrifier, there was none of that in In A Violent Nature. The writers seemed to want to completely forsake any sort of decent story or character development, whip up some dogshit dialogue to attach to promiscuous teens/young adults, place them in a vulnerable position, and speed right to the blood and guts. Bypassing any formalities of substance en route, The formulaic story is extremely slim and the spark that grants the killer license to go on an impalement spree is even more ridiculous. A group of teens rent a cabin out in the woods to party. Over beers, weed, and insults around a fire one of the teens tells the legend of Johnny, a dimwitted child who was tricked into climbing a tower to retrieve a bag of toys. He fell to his death and nobody was ever held accountable in a court of law. Following this, at intervals of every ten years, mysterious deaths plague the area with the unfounded culprit being Johnny's vengeful spirit. From the outset of the film, the audience is shown a dangling gold locket hanging from a pole. One of the teens steals the locket. Shortly thereafter the pole shakes back and forth and a gargantuan zombie climbs up through the earth. Johnny. Alive and in pursuit of retrieving the locket, he listens in the shadows while the fireside yarn is spun and then the rest of the film is a predictable highlight reel of incomprehensible mutilation. And that's it in a nutshell. Another barf-bucket retread that attempts to up the level of creativity in dismembering and torturing human beings via the medium of an indestructibly mute subhuman. In Terrifier we are wowed as Art The Clown hangs a woman upside down by her heels and saws her in half with a hacksaw in front of her best friend while she's tied to a chair. In In A Violent Nature, the apex of nastiness happens when a forest park ranger is incapacitated and then has his arm placed on a log splitter and we watch as the metal wedge marches slowly to meet with the base, slicing easily through flesh and bone. Unsatisfied, Johnny realigns the ranger to rest his neck on the rail and does it again, this time decapitating him. All of this is deliberately done at a snail's pace with the gas engine humming loudly to induce an experience as pleasant as a root canal. Maybe in my early teens, I would have enjoyed this movie, but on the advent of arriving at my 40s, films like these just flat out suck anymore. The lack of substance has grown to be intolerable and I've seen enough makeshift abattoirs featuring human cattle to more than satisfy my adolescent craving for artificial blood. I know most ardent horror fans will disagree with me on this note, but films like this, Terrifier, Troma's War, August Underground's Mordem, and Murder Set Pieces suck worse than any other genre's bottom feeders. Unlike Silent Night Deadly Night, Dead Alive, or The Friday The 13th 1-8 retreads, there isn't even the element of amusement at the goofy characters bereft of knowledge that they're in line to be slaughtered. Only depressing and unoriginal drawn-out torture scenes. Barf-bucket filmmaking in its essence. A generous half-star for the still camera perspective of the killer. Otherwise, nothing more than a money-infused Friday the 13th fan-boy tribute that slipped past the realm of YouTube to be vomited onto the big screen.

Stars: 1/2*

Verdict: Pass

Cousins: Maniac, Terrifier, Friday the 13th, The Burning, Sleepaway Camp