Horror movies are often predicated on ridiculously simple ideas usually having to do with not-so-innocent civilians intruding on the space of malignant forces. In Chris Nash’s debut feature, which picks and chooses its ideas from a number of well-known splatter series, the premise is a locket that hangs from a shelf in an abandoned fire tower in a remote Canadian forest. We hear the voices of feckless young men, one of whom apparently snatches the locket as a souvenir. This action effectively unleashes a demon named Johnny (Ry Barrett), who emerges from the earth to retrieve the locket, which has some kind of sentimental value. During the course of this very bloody movie, Johnny’s back story comes together and it’s about internecine small-town prejudices in the distant past that led to unspeakable violence and slaughter, but much of this exposition is as unnecessary as the locket itself. Nash is more about Johhny as a presence, even a protagonist, since almost the entire movie is shot from his point-of-view.

Johnny doesn’t talk, and for most of the time his face is hidden behind a fire-fighter’s oxygen mask. His tools are also those of the logging trade—grappling hooks, chains, saws, axes, all of which are put to creative use in decapitating, disemboweling, and pulverizing anyone who comes between him and the locket. What makes the experience unique as a horror feature is the almost leisurely pace, the total lack of suspense (no jump scares), and the breathtaking scenery in which the atrocities take place. It’s as if Johnny is standing in for a natural world that has decided it’s had enough of humans. Several characters imply that this isn’t the first time Johnny has wreaked havoc, a feint that could allow Nash to revisit Johnny in a future project—or not. The movie is literally open-ended but not necessarily begging for continuation. One girl (Andrea Pavlovic) in the initial targeted group manages to escape, and as we await her comeuppance in a final reckoning, the movie just sort of peters out with a conversation between the girl and her clueless rescuer (Lauren-Marie Taylor), who philosophizes about the reality that eveything in nature dies anyway, including us. I’m not sure if I’m looking forward to further adventures of Johnny, but it will be interesting to see what Nash does next. 

Now playing in Tokyo at Shinjuku Cinema Qualite (03-3352-5645), Human Trust Cinema Shibuya (03-5468-5551). 

In a Violent Nature home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2023 Zygote Pictures Inc.