The best of the bunch is Chris Nash’s wild “In a Violent Nature,” a film that plays like an arthouse version of “Friday the 13th,” from Jason’s perspective. It is a gore-fest that is splendidly committed to the bit, starting with an extended sequence of a hulking figure emerging from the earth and slowly walking through the woods. As a conversation plays out in the distance—always at such a clear volume that I half-wonder if Nash’s undead creature is supposed to have super-hearing—the camera lurks a few steps behind its monster, moving at his deliberate pace. This is largely the rhythm the film will follow for its runtime, including an amazing scene in which the monster simply walks into a lake in which a poor victim is swimming on the other side, and we wait what seems like an eternity for the inevitable.
There is a loose plot in “In a Violent Nature” that explains the film’s big bad and introduces a group of travelers to the woodsy region, one of whom takes a necklace that had been keeping the villain entombed in the ground. The travelers are largely just a crew of future victims, but Nash has put some thought into their dispatching, including one of the most brutal kills I’ve ever seen in a horror film. And, to be fair, the young Canadian cast is more charming and engaging than your average slasher pic, especially Andrea Pavlovic. The first few victims are kind of interchangeable, but the ones who realize they’re being hunted deliver, especially when they realize they’re being hunted.
Having said that, “In a Violent Nature” is mostly a formal exercise. What if we told a horror story not as much from the POV of the bad guy—it’s like we get to know his inner monologue—but merely trapped by his side? And Nash is careful not to make a “Hardcore Henry” version of this wherein we root for a ruthless killer. It’s not exploitative, even though it is often gross and brutal. In a sense, locking us beside the bad guy ups the tension because we can’t escape either. We’re as trapped as his victims, just hoping he doesn’t turn around.