Was back at the cinema with Mike Baker last week for another installment of Movies My Wife Won’t See. This time, niche horror jam In A Violent Nature.
Let’s get stabby!
IAVN is “an unexpectedly serene, almost dreamlike meditation on a murderous psyche,” says The New York Times. More accurately, a clever (cleaver?) approach to the Jason Voorhees archetype — flipping our unstoppable monster from antagonist to protagonist, then filming the whole thing like a Gus Van Sant experiment in form and pacing.
Director Chris Nash makes bold aesthetic choices; can’t think of another slasher so committed to Academy ratio, diagetic sound and the overall concept of patience, while still adhering to every genre trope of the Friday The 13th series and its many knockoffs.
There’s a great mask. Believably clueless, horny teens. Insane practical FX (courtesy Psycho Goreman’s Steven Kostanski) and one perfectly hulking creature.
Here’s some Filmmaker Magazine Q&As with Nash, editor Alex Jacobs, and two from DP Pierce Derks from before and after release. When this crew’s seemingly antithetical approaches of still and kill get in a rhythm, the resulting tension is so intense that you may become physically sick.
I dug it!
And realized that I may have never watched any actual Jason movies in full.
How?!?
The cultural power of this character is so strong that it feels like I already have seen ‘em all. And I’m sure, through hazily-remembered Blockbuster rentals and various tweenage sleepovers, I’ve made the attempts.
Definitely owned the terrible NES game as a kid. A Mexican lobby card for Jason Takes Manhattan has followed me to every apartment I’ve ever lived in.
But I can’t speak to the relative merits of each chapter in the franchise.
And there’s twelve of ‘em.
The first eight are on Max right now, along with the 2009 reboot. I should probably start with the OG, filmed in scenic Warren County, NJ; here’s an oral history of the production.
While watching director Sean S. Cunningham’s follow-up, The New Kids (starring Full House mugshawty Lori Laughlin and a particularly slimy James Spader) I thought, “this is a harsh toke for an ‘80s teen movie. I fuck with dude!”
Back to Friday… Jason doesn’t even appear in it! His mother is the knife wielding force, getting revenge on the camp counselors whose predecessors were too busy humping to stop her son from drowning in Crystal Lake.
As far as motivations go, it’s potent (and Freudian) enough to power the entire series, which introduces baby Voorhees with a climactic jump scare in the water at the end of Part 2, then hides his disfiguration behind a hockey mask that will change Halloween forever in Part 3: 3D.
Jason Lives is the sixth entry and consensus “heads” pick. “In the years since its release, its self-referential humor and numerous instances of breaking the fourth wall have been praised for prefiguring Kevin Williamson's Scream film series.”
Twist my arm, you’re up next!
I’m most curious about 2001’s Jason X, which seems legit terrible. “In the film, Jason is cryogenically frozen for over 400 years and awakens in 2455, after being found by a group of students, whom he subsequently stalks and kills one by one.” That description (and the gloriously cheapo Y2K sci-fi textures) is definitely worth a LOL, a WTF and a CH CH CH AH AH AH while watching a supercut of kills.
There’s clearly something about this wordless, weirdly existential murderer that has connected with people for four decades and counting — enough to send him to outer space, hell, and midtown Manhattan, all while continuing to inspire arthouse re-imaginings like In A Violent Nature and (fingers crossed) an official A24 Crystal Lake series.
Not to mention toys, tattoos, jewelry, pipes (!!!) and every other way you can slash your way into mainstream icon status. This burnout pic is from an LA lowrider meetup; I could have screenshotted old Jadakiss videos in there instead, or new Eminem.
As I type this up over Pride weekend, guess all that’s left to say is:
SLAY, KING!