When Stephen King endorsed the divisive ‘In a Violent Nature’: “When the blood flows, it flows in buckets”
In 2024, a horror movie that seemed to split audiences down the middle was released. Some loved its unique take on the slasher genre, which placed the audience into a wildly different perspective. However, others found it to be plodding and slow-paced in the extreme, and this made the gory kills that most horror fans pay their hard-earned money to watch harder to enjoy. However, there was one vitally important voice in the horror genre who was most definitely a fan of the film: the King of Horror himself, Stephen King.
When Canadian writer/director Chris Nash began pondering how to make a slasher movie that audiences hadn’t seen before, he resolved to take inspiration from some unusual sources. Instead of trying to ape the style of horror greats like John Carpenter or Wes Craven, Nash looked to filmmakers like Terence Malick and Gus Van Sant. Both of those directors favour a slow, methodical, somewhat dreamlike style that favours mood and atmosphere over plot—and that’s what Nash wanted for In a Violent Nature.
Nash’s idea of telling a slasher story from the killer’s perspective instead of the victims’ jived perfectly with his choice to evoke a slower style of filmmaking – although he admitted he was fully aware that it was a risk. “We acknowledge that we’re trying the patience of somebody who is going in there expecting to watch Friday the 13th,” Nash told Time magazine.
The young director also resolved not to use a musical score in the film, as he was adamant that music can become crutches in horror movies. “I didn’t want to tell the audience what to think or what to feel while watching this,” he insisted. “I wanted to create as much of an objective viewpoint as possible.”
However, Nash was adamant that his film was patient, as opposed to slow, and that viewers would be rewarded for sticking with it. “Our movie rides that line,” he explained. “There are some people whose appetite is completely against that. But horror will reward patience.” He believes that allowing more time to build atmosphere and dread makes the kills all the more exciting because the audience has been waiting with bated breath for them to happen. Then, when the gruesome action occurs, they “get that dopamine rush and that reward.”
Imagine Nash’s excitement when he discovered that King, arguably the most canonical voice in horror fiction of the last 50 years, wholeheartedly agreed with him. “In a Violent Nature,” King tweeted. “If you need a slasher movie, this one will do the job. It’s leisurely, almost languorous, but when the blood flows, it flows in buckets.”
Amusingly, King signed off his review by noting that the killer – a hulking undead mute wearing a terrifying antique firefighter’s mask – couldn’t help reminding him of the modern era’s most popular animated characters. “The killer in his mask looks like the world’s most terrifying Minion,” King chuckled, referencing the all-conquering yellow miscreants from Dreamworks’ Despicable Me universe.
It is unclear whether Nash appreciated his arthouse horror experiment being associated with the Minions, but he would surely have been happy to receive King’s seal of approval. It was a fitting reward for a movie he’d always envisioned as paying homage to the slasher genre he loved growing up, albeit with the simple tweak of moving “the camera to a different spot.”
