“Maybe it’s supposed to be here.”

Story: Spending time in the woods is fun. Nature, exercise, campfires, s’mores…good times. But maybe if you see an old gold locket literally hanging out in the woods? Maybe leave it alone. Because maybe (that’s a maybe #HatTrick y’all) it might just be keeping a sadistic, supernatural killer in his little sleepy-time place. And moving it might have him wandering around looking for it…killing anyone he comes in contact with. Y’know, possibly. Just saying.

Genre I’d put it in: Mixed Subgenre Horror
Release Date: 2024
Remake, Sequel, Based-On, or Original: Original, but you’ll hark back to horror films from several different genres

Gotta say: Nature is one of the films that almost got me up off my ass and over to Sundance this year. Folks were calling it a horror movie “from the POV of the killer”. Color me intrigued. But this film isn’t a story where you’re constantly in Michael Myers’ Mask-O-Vision. It’s a film where there isn’t really a main character, but instead viewers are passively lead through the story from a couple of viewpoints. And it’s a brutal look at the nature of survival, and death. The nature of these things? Hey – the title of this film is deep, y’all! Okay, so all y’all were quicker than I was on that one. Fine. Moving on.

Nature messes with your ability to care about the characters, as you see what happens as the story progresses as more of a fly in the woods than pulled into the action itself. Things start with our boy Johnny, a barely sentient human-looking force of nature. We hear hikers discussing an item they’ve stumbled upon; a pretty little gold locket on a chain. One guy thinks they should leave it, the other surreptitiously pockets it. Almost immediately, Johnny rises up from the earth, and starts to trudge through the woods. Yep, he’s searching for the locket; did my totally subtle story tidbit clue you in? He’s a man-thing of few joys or whatever, and even fewer words. Not a single one, actually. Ry Barrett does an amazing job as Johnny, silently delivering a curiously compelling character under tons of FX makeup. The rest of the cast is…there. It feels like they’re channeling character tropes, rather than being actual characters. Ooh, artsy.

As we follow Johnny through the woods, we meet more characters who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. What Johnny does to them is also very, very wrong. In fact, one of the kills is the most disgustingly inventive bit of gore I’ve ever seen onscreen. And I’ve watched some messed-up stuff. No spoilers, because I want you to be just as horrified as I was (YOU’RE WELCOME), and because the gory payoffs to Johnny’s wandering are a gut-punch, even though folks will know damn well what’s gonna happen to [Poor Sod Number Whatever] as soon as we see ’em onscreen. There’s no real connection to these characters thanks to the out-of-body kinda way the story pulls viewers along. But the merciless violence of a character’s end connected with me like a sock in the gut. Y’know. the kind where you feel like you’re gonna be sick? Yeah, like that.

Director Chris Nash is relatively new to filmmaking; Nature is his first time helming a full-length feature, though he delivered quality FX work on 2020’s Psycho Goreman. Nash’s use of various shots and angles – long, over-the-shoulder, wide, low angle/ground level, and of course, POV – feel unique here. The music in Nature is used sparingly, with bits of diegetic music almost becoming a strange, warped soundtrack as the music a character was listening to becomes grossly distorted after, well, things happen. The lack of background music in the rest of the film makes these particular scenes even more horrific, as the music seems to echo the destruction of the individual who was listening to it. It’s an excellent touch. The quiet, almost somber mood of the film is amped up by cinematographer Pierce Derk’s retro-styled look of the film.

There’s an 80s slasher vibe here, with the film sometimes shifting to a grainier style that harks back to films like the original Friday the 13th and Halloween. Combined with the sound choices, this gives a more indie, art-house feel to Nature. It’s an interesting choice, and it kept me glued to my seat. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a combination art-house horror/slasher movie before. That in itself is worth the price of admission.

My quibbles? As this is an art-house type of joint, there’s lots of literal plodding around. Viewers expecting a more action-packed kill-fest may be disappointed by the slow, matter-of-fact way Johnny meets his victims. It’s also tough to gauge when the film will end. At just over an hour and a half, Nature seems longer, because Johnny’s slow, relentless progress through the woods toward his victims often feels like the slog it’d be in real life. I can understand why there’s been a lot of lukewarm feelings about this film; the trailers have enticing bits overlaid with review blurbs touting it as “gnarly”, “gruesome”, and “blood-soaked”. So die-hard gorehounds may be disappointed in the draggy way the story unfolds.

Speaking of gore, there’s one particular body that looks so obviously FX that it pulled me out of the scene. The kill was amazing – and extremely in your face, literally and figuratively. But then Johnny drags the… remnants… around, and the pieces do not look even remotely real. No, it’s not as bad as that final Bye Bye Mom scene in the original A Nightmare On Elm Street. It’s damn close though. Luckily, things get much more, shall we say, authentic, after that. I think it was just a hiccup, as the bloody goings on before and after are well done.

For me, I thought this unique way of horror storytelling (horrortelling? I’ll workshop it) worked. Was I ready for the film to wrap up a time or two? Oh, absolutely. There were moments where the slow pace became tortuous, and if I’d been alone in the theater I’d have shouted “C’MON ALREADY!” Even with that, the strangely tense final scenes were the cherry on top of this bloody sundae. It might not be to everyone’s taste, but I found a lot of goodness inside, which is pretty great for a film that’s this unique. When it hits Shudder later this year – and as it’s co-produced by the streaming service, so it definitely will – I’ll give it another watch. Y’know, for science or something.

#Protip: Wondering what in the hell that wicked hook thingy Johnny carries around actually is? After a bit of Google University research, it looks like an antique double leg sling hook, but understand I’m totally talking out of my orifice here. Feels like right, though. And here I thought forestry and firefighting was impressive as hell before looking at one of these babies. Whoa.