Stephen King receives rave reviews for one of 2024’s most violent slasher films

Stephen King spends a lot of time writing … and by a lot, I mean a a lotjudging by the huge pile of novels, stories and short stories that the King of Horror has written in his lifetime (the good, the bad and “Dream Catcher” yes). And when he’s not writing, he’s probably buried in a book faithful future bestseller Liane Moriarty or some niche tome that piqued his interest. But if he does none of these things, King is likely to host this critically acclaimed TV show your youngest sibling won’t shut up about (hello, it’s me, your youngest sibling) or extending their movie theater card after seeing one of the most popular indie or non-franchise films.

2024 man did not slow down on this front either. Was he singing the praises of Jeremy Saulnier’s Rebel Ridge-esque action thriller First Blood , or wondering many subversive twists in J. T. Molner about the serial killer “Strange Darling” with its non-linear, Crime Scene-esque chapter format, King had a lot to say about movies that might fly under the radar for more casual moviegoers or be buried under mountains of Netflix titles. And don’t worry In a Violent Nature fans, the horror maestro also had kind words for Chris Nash’s unconventional slasher film festival favorite (and Canadians – props to our neighbors to the north!).

What if Gus Van Sant, working in a quasi-abstract, experimental mode of filmmaking, was he doing on “Jerry” inspired by Tomb Raider and the other films in his Death Trilogy theme made Friday the 13th Part 2 (the F13 film in which Jason Voorhees became the franchise’s big man but had yet to acquire his signature hockey mask and had to make do with burlap on the head instead)? You could get something like Violent Character, a horror film told entirely from the point of view of a supernatural masked killer. The camera even lingers on him for an extended period of time as he slowly but steadily trudges through the forest in pursuit of his prey, with a strangely calming and even hypnotic effect.

That is, of course, unless he kills his victims in sadistic and perverse ways. As King once wrote The Twitter post has since been deleted (only Jason’s rival Freddy Krueger would call it X):

IN A VIOLENT NATURE: If you need a slasher, this one will do the job. Unhurried, almost lethargic, but when blood flows, it flows in buckets. The masked killer looks like the scariest Minion in the world.

Johnny (Ry Barrett), the film’s main killer, looks exactly like one of Gru’s henchmen from Despicable Me thanks to his smoke helmet (which itself resembles the miner’s gear worn by the killer in My Bloody Valentine). At the same time, he’s similar to Jason in that, despite the obviously nasty ways he kills mortals who unwittingly put him on the warpath, he’s an animal force driven more by instinct than willful malice (unlike Mr. Krueger). I’d argue that “In a Violent Nature” actually invites you to ponder deeper concepts like these during the lengthy ASMR-y sequences that punctuate its moments of purely visceral ultra-violence – including one now infamous death, very much deserves to be called the most brutal horror movie murder of 2024. Who says a splashy slasher can’t hold a crowd?

“In a Violent Nature” is now streaming on Shudder.