By Nick Nitkowski

Everyone loves a good slasher movie. Horror fans will never say no to a psycho slasher, silent or otherwise, mowing down teenagers indulging in debauchery and premarital sex in a cabin in the woods. Despite the fact that nine times of out ten, they are all relatively execute the same formula every single time. The only things that ever change are the kills and the killers. Because that what the fans want to see, uniquely executed kill counts. That and the occasional cleavage.

But now we have “In a Violent Nature” which takes a very familiar concept of the slasher film. Only this time… it’s entirely through the perspective of the silent killer! Once I heard that concept, I was completely on board and really wanted to see this film! This is a concept that, to my knowledge, has never been done before. So, naturally, I had to see how they pull this off.

As mentioned before, this film is almost entirely through the perspective of the silent killer as he hunts down his victims. And again, it is such a unique and awesome concept! Until you realize exactly what that concept entails… a lot of walking and a lot of silence. A first, the filmmakers did the smart thing by cutting through passages of time to indicate how long the killer had been walking until he reaches his next victim. And then once you get to see the kill, it’s right back to silence and walking. That’s what I mean when I say that the novelty wears off fast.

Another issue with this movie were the actors. Not the silent killer. He understood the assignment and pulls it off completely well. I’m talking about the normal victims. The moment they are introduced, you can pretty much tell that they haven’t acted before. Their line deliveries were completely unconvincing with every single word that they say. Even when they were all drinking and sharing stories by the fire, I wasn’t convinced by anything that they were saying. Might as well have been reading the lines off of cue cards off camera. Even when they were supposed to be scared or injured, it wasn’t at all believable.

As for the kills, there was really only one memorable kill in the whole film. It was ridiculous, over the top, creative and gory and it was the one that got the biggest reaction from the audience. They rest felt pretty standard with some unconvincing prosthetics. One of the kills was actually cut away before we saw anything happen, which I personally thought was an odd choice considering that we are supposed to be seeing everything through the perspective of the killer.

But I think the worst thing about this movie was how they chose to end it. Without spoiling anything, the ending felt very slow and completely unnecessary. It literally got to a point when I was fading in and out of consciousness and noticing that the scene had not changed at all. I watched this movie somewhat late at night, but I imagine it would have had the same effect on me during daylight hours. I would never consider myself better than the people that made this film as I know how difficult it is to make a film of any kind, but I immediately thought of a better way to end the film when I walked out.

Overall, the concept alone was enough to get me on board and for a while, it definitely held my interest. But as the film kept going, my interest was starting to fade. Definitely well shot with a 4:3 aspect ratio, but poorly acted. Undoubtedly a great concept, but it wears off fast. Definitely could have been great and standout from other slasher films, but not everything was executed well enough to be great. There were things that worked with the film and things that worked against it. Critics seem to be liking this film so far, but I’m not sure how horror fans are going to like this film, at least not fully. I feel that this will be one of those horror movies that splits the audience and not in a fun way.

2 1/2 stars