[COLUMN] In a Violent Nature Reconnects Horror With Its Indie Roots | by Darren Mooney

Chris Nash’s In a Violent Nature is an interesting genre hybrid.

In terms of plot, the film is a fairly generic riff on the classic slasher template. It focuses on a seemingly immortal serial killer named Johnny (Ry Barrett), the vengeful and scarred form of a child who was killed decades earlier in a prank that went horribly wrong. The implication is that Johnny has embarked on more than a couple of these killing sprees in the years since his death, only to be vanquished at the end of each massacre.

This time, Johnny is awoken when tourist Troy (Liam Leone) takes the locket resting on the shallow grave beneath the ruins of the old fire tower. Johnny embarks on a brutal rampage, killing anybody who gets in his way. It is all fairly standard stuff, and even the finer details – the dead kid, the rural setting, the camping horny tourists – evoke the legend of Jason Vorhees and Crystal Lake from the Friday the 13th franchise.

However, In a Violent Nature stands out for the way that tells this story. While the plot is fairly familiar, the storytelling is quite distinct. Working from his own screenplay, Nash shoots the film in a manner very evocative of contemporary independent filmmaking, in a way that “combines a slasher in the vein of Friday the 13th with the slow cinema of directors like Terrence Malick.” In a Violent Nature is a very still and very quiet sort of slasher movie.

Nash tends to employ long takes. He shoots close-ups in tight focus. There is very little non-diegetic music. The soundtrack focuses on the ambient sounds of nature: birds in the distance, wind through the trees, grass underfoot. The camera follows Johnny as he moves though the landscape. In a Violent Natures eschews the language of conventional slasher movies like quick cuts and jump scares for extended sequences of its monster trundling through the forest in broad daylight.

“I love the vibe of following a character,” Nash explained of his approach to In a Violent Nature. “Sitting back and having somebody hold your hand through this story and just feeling a gentle breeze of the film pass by you.” He has acknowledged the inspiration of Gus Van Sant’s “death trilogy” – Gerry, Elephant and Last Days – talking about how they “are just slower, more methodical, more deliberate and follow characters through a scene.”

This isn’t how horror movies typically look, even those that are controversially described as “elevated horror.” It is a very arthouse sensibility to bring to a slasher movie, to the point that one almost expects an abstract visual montage exploring Johnny’s complicated family history in conversation with the natural world in which he finds himself. Nash deserves a lot of credit for finding a fresh way to approach a genre that is intensely formulaic.

Indeed, the weakest aspects of In a Violent Nature are the most traditional. Nash evokes the sorts of independent movies that are famously abstract and dense, and don’t include a lot of exposition. However, slasher movies are often lousy with exposition – there’s always a lot of lore to explain or family history to navigate, particularly within long-running franchises. However, the basic rhythms of the slasher are so deeply ingrained in popular imagination that they don’t need explaining.

The clumsiest moments in In a Violent Nature consist of Johnny wandering close to his victims and hiding in the bushes so that they can fill in various gaps in the film’s mythology. It’s material that isn’t really needed, particularly given how much Johnny owes to Jason Voorhees specifically. It breaks the movie’s magic spell, because Nash has to pivot into a much more traditional mode to provide information that is largely surplus to requirement and works against the movie’s strengths.

Still, even these flaws speak to the movie’s unique approach to the material, demonstrating the novelty through contrast. However, while Nash has undoubtedly found a fresh angle on familiar material, it never feels jarring. Nash is still operating in a space that is at least adjacent to the classic slasher movie template. After all, Nash’s decision to have the camera follow Johnny is really just an extension of the shots from the killer’s perspective popularized by Psycho or Halloween.

However, Nash is also doing something smarter by tying together the disparate threads of the classic slasher movie and contemporary slow cinema. Nash is acknowledging the long and intertwined history of American independent cinema and the horror genre. These two kinds of filmmaking aren’t as distant as one might imagine. The contemporary arthouse darlings and the cheap direct-to-video slasher flicks share a common ancestry. In a Violent Nature explores that familial connection.

The history of American independent cinema is also the history of the American horror movie. Many of the most important and most influential independent films of the past century have been horror films. While the horror genre has traditionally been denied the prestige and the respect that the critical and artistic community reserve for low-budget high-brow indies, it has been integral to the development and the growth of that side of the industry.

This overlap was most pronounced during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, as the larger film industry was in flux. Because horror movies were cheap and could reliably attract audiences, they were a safe investment. Young filmmakers operating outside the system could raise enough money to make horror movies on their own terms. The results were admittedly scattershot. This was a model that made it possible for Sam Raimi to make The Evil Dead, but also enabled Manos: The Hands of Fate.

Still, setting aside the genre’s function as a launching pad for young directors and the fact that a lot of these movies were terrible, some of these independent horrors could be massively influential. Although overlooked on initial release, Herk Harvey’s Carnival of Souls quickly became an important touchstone for independent cinema. “I was freed by the fact that I had no need to worry about Hollywood formats,” explained screenwriter John Clifford. “I didn’t have to conform in any way.”

Carnival of Souls still feels avant-garde today, with Merritt Meecham arguing that “the aesthetic of the film defies time and space”, in its use of montage and abstract imagery. “To say the least, it was an independent production and, like many of the best rock ’n’ roll records, a one-shot deal,” explains Bruce Kawin. “Its influence on other independent work was huge.” It inspired directors like David Lynch and George Romero.

The influence of these independent horror movies didn’t need to be creative or artistic. They also fundamentally altered the industry. In 1968, the success of George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead “changed the course of independent filmmaking in America.” This happened at the exact moment that the existing studio system was in chaos, and so demonstrated that young and dynamic voices outside the mainstream could create movies that resonated with audiences.

Many of the formative and iconic horror movies were independent films, existing outside the framework of conventional Hollywood moviemaking. In 1974, Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre was “a low-budget, independent, regional film” that helped establish Texas as a viable scene in independent cinema and “inspired a generation of independent filmmakers of all stripes.” Its content was provocative and challenging to mainstream audiences at the time.

There is also the simple commercial appeal of independent horror films, demonstrating the viability of indie cinema as an artform unto itself. On release, John Carpenter’s Halloween was “the most profitable independent film release in history.” To this day, The Blair Witch Project remains one of the most profitable films ever. While horror movies might be seen as crass and commercial, a rising tide lifts all boats. The genre has provided a backbone for the larger independent filmmaking scene.

It is easy to lose sight of this in the current glut of franchise horror movies. Horror is big business for the major studios. Universal famously spent $400m to secure the rights to the Exorcist franchise. The horror genre, long regarded as cheap and disposable, has been embraced as valuable intellectual property to be protected and maintained. To a certain extent, these things are cyclical; the Universal monsters were one of Hollywood’s first mega-franchises.

However, there is also something worthwhile in reminding audiences that so much of modern cinematic horror can trace its roots back to the early days of American independent cinema. In this sense, Chris Nash’s In a Violent Nature makes a worthy companion piece to Ti West’s X, which is a movie that is much more regionally specific in how it explores the overlap of two particular strands of independent cinema in Texas during the 1970s: pornography and horror.

However, while X explores a historical point of intersection, In a Violent Nature suggests a more modern union of horror movie tropes with the style of contemporary independent cinema. On paper, these are two very different kinds of movies, but In a Violent Nature is smart enough to understand that they are really just distant cousins reunited.