With In A Violent Nature now in cinemas, we chat to director Chris Nash about crafting the year’s most interesting, rule-breaking slasher film.
Chris Nash’s feature directorial debut In A Violent Nature is arguably among the best horror films of the year so far. The slasher premiered at Sundance Film Festival to immediate buzz thanks to its brutal violence and a unique approach to a tired sub-genre.
Unlike most horror films, In A Violent Nature is shot mostly from the point of view of the central killer, Johnny, played by Ry Barrett. The film includes a lot of sequences where we simply follow Johnny as he walks from one victim to another. In our review, we described In A Violent Nature as “inventive, cruel and the kind that will leave your jaw on the floor.”
Naturally, we had to sit down with Nash to chat about the film and why No Country For Old Men should also be considered a slasher.
Are you a slasher fan? Is that your favourite horror sub-genre?
There’s two questions [here]. It’s not my favourite sub-genre. Am I a slasher fan? Yeah, I think I’m a slasher fan. I’m a fan of horror in general. And, of course, like when I was younger, [I was] definitely a lot more into the slashers. But these days, as an adult, I lean towards existential horror and body [horror] or that kind of stuff.
Is there a particular killer that you’re drawn to? In A Violent Nature has been compared to Friday The 13th a lot…
I have different reasons for appreciating different films, I think. This is gonna sound like a non-answer answer, but we’ve been discussing a lot about whether No Country For Old Men is a slasher film. And we’ve decided it is and for that, I think Anton Chigurh is probably the most interesting slasher to me, watching with that in mind. Looking at my film, I feel like there are a lot of parallels between that.
But then there’s also just a lot of parallels with [Anton Chigurh] and slashers in general. He’s got his one tool, his death implement. He doesn’t say a lot, he’s a brooding presence. He’s slow and methodical, he’s got a silhouette that’s instantly recognisable. If we’re going to stretch a sheet and say that No Country is a slasher film, then that would be a good slasher. However, I really like Jason [Voorhees, Friday The 13th] as a whole. I think you can go and you can pick apart every single Friday The 13th movie and love it or hate it on its own merits. But the idea of Jason as a whole being, this piece of iconography that evolves with every film, is really fascinating. In light of this movie coming out and the cancellation of Crystal Lake, I’m hearing so much of ‘Oh, we need to do Friday The 13th’. And it’s I just wonder what that would look like, because what do they want? Do they want a retread of the first one where it’s Pamela Voorhees? Do we want the second one where it’s baghead Jason? No, you want Jason with the hockey mask, but then do you want zombie Jason with a hockey mask? Or do you want a living Jason with a hockey mask? It’s such a weird evolution of iconography.
Friday the 13th has always been like the gateway to slashers, but over the years, Jason has been to space, he’s been to Manhattan. Would you like to see Johnny taking Manhattan?
I really like the fact that whenever this comes up, everybody says space first and then they go to Manhattan. I don’t even know if Leprechauns have been to Manhattan yet. Leprechauns have been to space! It would really be fun, if we were to go wild with this character. And the whole concept of applying a real art school mentality towards slasher films, sending him to all these different locations would be wild.
At the beginning of In A Violent Nature, Johnny wakes up and heads to the house, where the first death happens, but we don’t see it.
Well, we know it happens. I feel like that’s good enough, for me anyways. I love when match cuts are used effectively to communicate so much information. One of my favourite match cuts is from this movie that Scott Reynolds did [The Ugly, 1997], and it’s right near the end, where we see the lead character and we see the aftermath of what happened. He’s all battered and bruised, and he’s riding in the back of a car. And then there’s a really great match cut to before all this abuse happened. It’s so effective.
We don’t need to necessarily see anything happen, but we can understand that carnage took place. I really wanted to have that situation where we know that something took place and then afterwards, we just see him walking through where it happened and we see the aftermath, the blood and the dead body and stuff. I just thought that would be super effective. Also knowing that we’re going to deliver, we’re gonna show some deaths later, that’s fine. We can ease into it. It’s not just blast beats from the beginning to the end.
It’s fair to say that there’s a lot of gore in the film, including a phenomenal hook kill. But there’s also a really fascinating balance between the really gory kills and the more low-key deaths where we see barely anything. Were you conscious of creating that balance throughout the film of what you show and what you don’t show?
Yeah, absolutely. [The kill] that happens before [the hook kill] originally was going to be a much more involved death in the water, but due to a bunch of technical issues that just didn’t come to fruition. When were we re-conceptualising how to approach these things, it just became apparent that what’s coming in after this scene is going to be so visceral, why don’t we just step back and just be quiet and really look at the whole movie as a piece that we’re conducting with highs and lows and take the audience on a ride. It’s not just a constant loop de loop of a roller coaster. It’s got to have the rising action and the falling action at the same time.
The film also has a really interesting setting. We see smartphones, and it’s obviously set in modern times, but then there’s also a cassette player. Did you want it to be kind of ambiguous? It Follows is another one that comes to mind where it’s modern, but it’s also not.
For sure. I didn’t have It Follows in mind at the time or even until you mentioned it, but yeah, I think that aesthetic is something that we were going for, to give it this somewhat retro feel, but at the same time, it’s not at all. Also, we’re living in this era right now where the youth is really trying to steal my childhood of growing up in the 80s. Seeing that cassettes are back, I’m like, ‘Come on, guys, we’ve moved on. We’ve moved on from cassettes.’
An old teacher of mine used to talk about “the cinema of the body” and how filmmakers were looking for physical reactions from their audience, like throwing up. Did you have that in mind with all of the brutality of the film? Do you want your audience to vomit, basically?
No. Reacting? Yeah, for sure. If they react with vomit, then that’s valid, too. There have been reports of vomiting, [but] I don’t believe them at all. I’ve yet to see anything in the entirety of my life that has made me vomit by watching it, on video anyways, something filmed. I think this is all just opportunistic marketing, but I’ll take it.
That’s one of the things that I do like about gore effects and horror, this undeniable, unconscious reaction that comes [with] it, or that you can draw from an audience. And for what it’s worth, there’s a very deep seated truth to those reactions, because you can’t control it. It’s the same idea that I hear with comedy, where comedy only works if it’s honest, if there’s truth to it. Even if there’s a joke that’s very off-colour, depending on the reaction that you get from it, there’s something true in that joke that is revealed, or there’s something true in the person that laughs at it that’s revealed. There’s just an honesty in these guttural, human reactions that you’re always striving for. But I don’t think crying is one of them. I don’t know why. I feel like crying is such a weird manipulation and I feel like it’s very dishonest.
As in like trying to make your audience cry or just the audience crying?
Trying to make your audience cry. I feel like that’s really insincere in some way. I’m thinking more and more about it. All these questions have been brought to mind upon hearing these, these vomit stories.
I cry at everything, which is kind of a special talent, I guess.
Me too. Maybe that’s where this whole thesis is coming from. It’s like, ‘No, I’m not a crier.’
In In A Violent Nature, there is no score, there’s no music, but that’s by far the most effective way to guide and manipulate your audience’s feelings and what they’re supposed to be feeling for each character. You’ve taken that way. What did you want to achieve by that?
Exactly that. I wanted to not use it to manipulate an audience. Putting on any kind of score is just the easiest way to get an audience to where you want them to be emotionally, and I wanted to be as objective as possible. With the camerawork, the audio design, everything was supposed to be very stark and objective to make the film be as much of a blank canvas for an audience to paint their own impressions upon.
Then you’ve got a really tender moment when we see Johnny’s face. I went into the film thinking we’re never going to see his face because we’ve only ever seen him from behind. Why show his face?
Describing that as a tender moment is something that I’ve heard viewers tell me. I feel like that’s a misstep on my part. I wanted him to remain unapproachable, and I didn’t want to give any entry points for an audience into feeling any kind of sympathy or empathy for him. So looking at that, and having people say that, I feel like that’s almost going against my thesis.
The purpose of that was to show almost like a memory of a memory. He has no idea why he’s attracted to this toy, but he is, but how it plays out is a little too emotional, a little too internal, a little too projecting, like me telling the audience he’s a person under all that, which is almost the opposite of what I intended. So [it was] definitely an error on my part. But the purpose of that scene was more mechanical and technical than anyone would think it was. There were a lot of things going on. I felt like we needed to see his face, because at some point in time, we needed to see his face. For a lot of films, it’s at the final climax where the mask gets ripped off and you see like a zombie man or Predator under the helmet.
I felt like if we want to keep in with having this play out like an actual slasher film, we’re going to need to show that. That scene in particular had a lot of expositional dialogue happening in the background. I wanted to stay true to my vision of Johnny being this unstoppable object, moving forward the entire time. That’s a lot of time I have to make up for where we hear this exposition, but he’s constantly walking. So how do I stop him? And then I came up with the idea. I can kill two birds with one stone; have the keys be thrown away and have the keys be something that stops him in his tracks and we can also show his face.
I’m somebody that feels incredibly guilty of what I put my actors through, so Ry Barrett, the actor playing Johnny, it was like, I can’t just have him not emoting with his face through the entire film, and just be draped in heavy leather. Even though he’ll have a mask on, this will be an opportunity for him to bring something a little more to the character. All that stuff is why that scene is in there. It’s very tactical and solves problems. That’s also where a lot of art can come from, solving problems. We’ve created a whole moment that was unintended, but it fits perfectly within the structure of the film.
The film ends on a long monologue from Lauren-Marie Taylor. I do feel like it tests your patience because it only cuts between the two characters. Did you ever fear that you’re going to lose people right at the end?
The entire film is a test of patience. If you’re in for that long, you’re probably in for another couple of minutes. I really enjoy moments in films where characters are telling stories about stuff that you don’t see, not even in a flashback or any kind of visual representation of that story. I just like characters telling stories to each other. It’s something that I throw a lot into what I write. I knew [the ending] was going to be more divisive, especially for those going into it expecting a much more traditional slasher film, but it kind of fell within the framework of what we were trying to do, so it doesn’t bother me too much.
In A Violent Nature is in cinemas now.
