Nature Meets Nightmare: Chris Nash Discusses Bold Take on Slasher Genre in IN A VIOLENT NATURE

Ry Barrett as "Johnny" in Chris Nash's IN A VIOLENT NATURE | Courtesy of Pierce Derks | An IFC Films & Shudder Release

By Dolores Quintana

In IN A VIOLENT NATURE, when a locket is removed from a collapsed fire tower in the woods that entombs the rotting corpse of Johnny, a vengeful spirit spurred on by a horrific 60-year-old crime, his body is resurrected and becomes hellbent on retrieving it. The undead golem hones in on the group of vacationing teens responsible for the theft and proceeds to methodically slaughter them one by one in his mission to get it back - along with anyone in his way.

For the release of IN A VIOLENT NATURE, Creepy Kingdom's Dolores Quintana spoke with writer/director Chris Nash. During the interview, they discussed everything from how the idea originated on the set of Psycho Goreman, the challenges faced in deviating from traditional slasher formulas, and more.

Thanks so much for speaking with me today. I wanted to ask why you decided to make IN A VIOLET NATURE and how it came into being.

Chris Nash: Well, actually, IN A VIOLENT NATURE came about on the set of Psycho Gorman. We were in one of the shops, and we were working through a bunch of effects and getting things ready. While we were doing that, the whole crew was talking. There was Andrew Appelle, the cinematographer, Steven Kostanski, the director, and Pierce Derks who ended up working on IN A VIOLENT NATURE, as was Peter Kuplowsky the producer.

We were all talking about slasher movies and how there hadn’t been any new ground broken for a while in that format. I mentioned this idea I had where we follow a supernatural zombie or a reincarnated slasher through the woods and treat it almost like a nature documentary. We're staying with them and watching them go from camper to camper, just killing people and being very, very objective and not commenting on it at all. Everybody on set said that would be great. 

Steve said, if you did that, I would come and work on that for sure. It was an idea I had for quite a while, inspired by Gus Van Zant's films in the 2000s, Gerry, Elephant, and Last Days. It was just sitting with me, and when I mentioned it, everyone was pretty excited. I thought, well, maybe it does have legs and would be very easy to shoot. That part was wrong but I feel like it does have legs.

You brought up a great point when discussing with the others that there hadn't been anything new in slasher movies in a long time. I'm trying to think of innovative things about the subgenre, like the original slasher, Bay of Blood. Would you consider The Cabin in the Woods a slasher film?

Chris Nash: I wouldn't. It is hard to define that one as a slasher because it's more of a meta-commentary on horror films like "cabin in the woods" type of horror movies. Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon did some really fun stuff, treating it like a documentary in that format. But I think, in recent years, there have been a lot of homages. Many slashers are on-their-face slashers but are more of a homage, which is a lot of fun to watch when you want to watch them. But it’s not just this specific subgenre of horror. I think it's something happening across the film landscape as a whole. I think we could take a lot more lessons from music, mixing genres and mixing tastes, to come up with something new. Nobody's really doing much.

Ry Barrett and Charlotte Creaghan in Chris Nash's IN A VIOLENT NATURE | Courtesy of PIerce Derks | AN IFC Films & Shudder Release

One of the things I love about the film is that it's so different and takes such risks with the format, especially because some horror fans don't like it when you mess with it. There's a formula, and that's what they like.

Chris Nash: I'm very well aware of that now. [Laughs]

The casting in the film is really great, particularly the casting of Johnny. It's amazing because you don't see his face but feel that menace the entire time. People might not be aware, but that's great acting.

Chris Nash: Oh Yeah. There's a lot of physicality in these movies and in slasher films. That is why many of them will cast stunt performers who are incredible. I have worked with incredible stunt performers and actors, and many have great acting talent. But for this one, there's no way we can pay a stunt performer rate from the entire film on our budget. But so much of it would be reliant on the physical presence and being able to convey a tone and a purpose with the physicality alone.

The actor we ended up using in the film, Ry Barrett, is a staple within the genre community in Toronto. He's been in dozens and dozens of films, and he's a great actor. So we approached him and asked if he wanted to be in the film. It's a lot to say [to an actor] that you won't have any dialogue, you won't be able to speak, and we're gonna cover your face the entire movie, and it's gonna be a lot of hand acting and just using your body. But he really brought it, and he added so much to it. I found something almost magnetic just watching what he brings to the character, just walking through the woods. He just always carries a feeling of dread with him the entire time. 

Yes, and I think that’s something that you should get a lot of credit for because you made something that isn't technically that scary into something really frightening and engrossing - watching somebody walk. I was wondering, how did you manage that?

Chris Nash: It feels almost accidental. It feels like we knew this would not be so scary, but there would be so much foreboding with what's happening. We didn't want to mess with it at all. We didn't want to think too hard about it. Once we have all these parts, it will build the story we're trying to tell. We just try to be as objective as possible and objectively report what is happening. You can lean into music, or very flashy camera moves as a crutch to make you feel like a filmmaker. But we had some very strict rules that we did break at some points in time, but knowing that the rules existed allowed us the freedom to break them. But we had to give ourselves a reason for doing so.

Not only do we follow Johnny through the entire film, but he's almost in every frame of the film in some way, whether or not the camera moves away from him. He has to be at the beginning of the shot, or a shot without him in it has to end with him entering the shot. Things like that, we were like, okay, that's a rule. Another rule is we don't see his face until one certain point in the film. Another one is that there is no soundtrack at all, no score. It was daunting, but you have to trust your gut and hope it works out.

IN A VIOLENT NATURE is now exclusively in theaters.