In a Violent Nature director reveals one major reason horror movie is unrated

In an exclusive interview with Dexerto, In a Violent Nature director Chris Nash shared one major reason he thinks his horror movie is unrated. 

There’s been a lot of buzz surrounding the new movie, mostly because of its unique hook: the story is told from the killer’s POV. 

In a Violent Nature has received a positive response from the critics, an intense response from audiences (including a reported vomiting incident), and an intriguing one from the ratings board, who deemed the horror movie too much even for an R.

Dexerto caught up with Nash to ask him about the news that his film is officially unrated and why he thinks this is the case. His answer? “Unrelenting violence.”

“It’s always hard to tell what exactly it is that’s perking up the ears of the ratings board. I think it’s… one of the things that we did here was just the unrelenting violence so I think that might [have contributed],” he told us. 

The filmmaker also highlighted one of the deaths in particular that may have swayed opinion. Although we won’t mention it here due to spoilers, Nash explained that it just “goes on and on and on.”

“But that was by design. It was supposed to be long and unrelenting, and play out as one long take too,” the director added. 

Not only is this technique incredibly effective, but the death scenes are uniquely brutal, making In a Violent Nature a must-watch for horror fans.

Nash never once considered cutting parts of the movie to get it to an R, saying he’s been lucky with the support from US distributors Shutter and IFC. 

“They’re confident in the film. Once we originally sent it to the ratings board and learned that there’s no way it was going to be an R without cutting, it felt like there was no real consideration of cutting anything out,” he continued. 

“They were just like, ‘Okay, well we’ll release it unrated then.’”

In a Violent Nature drops in theaters on May 31, 2024, before landing on Shudder later this year. For more horror, check out our roundup of the best horror movies of all time. Or, find out why certain people find disturbing, nasty horror comforting.