A group of unwitting teenagers take a pendant from a dilapidated shed in the woods and unleash the beast.
I mean, don’t be taking any necklaces or jewellery that you find in the woods.
Or else Johnny (aka Fireman Sam Goes Rogue) might come looking for it……….and you at any cost…..….to you.
I’m telling you, if I see anything like that when I go trekking in the violent nature, Imma leave that shit where it is.
For reals.

This new Canadian horror film has been described as an ambient slasher so I’m wondering if this is the beginning of a new genre. All we need is some Come to Daddy vibes from the mighty Aphex Twin and we’ll be all set.

Nature is by its very essence incredibly violent. The cycle of life, from birth to death is brutal.
Early on in the film (see pic above) we see the mostly skeletal remains of an animal that had been snared by a trap and left to die and rot, this gives us an idea of how fucked up this film might be.
The gore in this is off the charts and looks incredibly real.
If you have a weak stomach, defo avoid this one.

Bear with me for a second, could this be seen as an ecological, climate change disaster metaphor?
The young are going to pay for what the previous generations did and it ain’t gonna be pretty.
No matter how they die, they are going to die and it’s all their ancestors fault.

Can we take a second to feel a little pity for the teens?
Teenagers in horror films……wow……poor bastards, not only do they have to go through the metamorphose of puberty (“You’re getting worse….NO, I’m getting better”) and the pitfalls of growing up, they end up absolutely gutted in a wood somewhere.
For what? 
Drinking a bit of booze, smoking a bit of the devil’s lettuce, having a bit of how’s yer father and generally trying to emulate the olds. It just ain’t fair.

The gore.
There have already been a bunch of walkouts during screenings (I love seeing a walkout) but as my fellow podcast host, Adam said after attending a surprise screening of the film “Some walked out because it wasn’t the film they wanted, some I’m guessing walked out due to the slow cinema stylist slant it took on the slasher genre and some unequivocally walked out because of gore (although there is nothing in the movie as genuinely disturbing as the violence in I Saw the Devil. Or as visceral as the last 15 minutes of Immaculate)”.
A lot has been said about the gore and while it is extreme at times, there’s a lot worse out there (Do you wanna play a game?).

In a Violent Nature pays massive homage to the Friday the 13th series, even casting Lauren Taylor, who appeared in Friday the 13th Part 2.
There is a lake and a brilliantly filmed death scene.
There are the woods (the violent nature), the teens, the killer and it’s all here imaginatively put together by director Chris Nash, the very talented crew and cast, who are all believable and committed.

Before I had read the director’s statement in the press notes, I’d already thought of Elephant directed by Alan Clark and produced by Danny Boyle in 1989, which I have just recently watched and is a film that contains very little dialogue and depicts 18 murders in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. It is clinical, unemotional and has an observational documentary feel.
The same can be said for In a Violent Nature. Director, Chris Nash had cited Elephant as an inspiration and wondered what it would be like to make a horror film with the meditative, ambient sensibilities of a Gus Van Sant or Terence Malick film. He succeeds by giving us a violent slasher movie that is unlike any before. Sure, it contains the usual innovative murders (shout out to the yogic contontortional one), the teens getting brutalised, a killer that is set to join the annals of Horror film killers with his signature ‘Vejan-Bader’ Smoke Mask that was used by 19th century firefighters and his cold, animalistic demeanour.

This is the third (or maybe the fourth) horror film that will make my list for best films of 2024, mostly for its style and difference. The other ones are Longlegs (See my review here), Immaculate and The Substance (review here) which is not out until September but is absolutely awesome.
All these films are not for the faint of stomach so “a warning, mate” if you’re not into blood being slung about will-nilly avoid these horror gems.

In a Violent Nature is out n August 1st at cinemas across Australia.