Johnny turned up at New York Comic Con on Saturday, in the mask, to announce his own release date. In a Violent Nature: Part 2 opens in theaters on February 12, 2027, the Friday of Valentine’s weekend, from IFC Films and Shudder.
The sequel picks up immediately after the 2024 film. Johnny follows a bullied outcast to a summer camp, where the kid has to get through the night with his counselor sister and her friends at the annual end-of-season party. Lucas Nguyen, Olivia Scriven, Laurie Babin of Red Rooms, Fionn Laird, Donald MacLean Jr. and Evan Marsh fill out the camp.
Johnny Finally Gets His Summer Camp
The first film kept its killer in the Canadian bush and stayed behind his shoulder for nearly all of it, which is what made it feel like nothing else in 2024. Dropping him into a camp full of counselors on the last night of the season is the Friday the 13th shape the original went out of its way to avoid.
Nate Wilson directs, moving up from first assistant director on the 2024 film, and the announcement credits original writer-director Chris Nash alongside him. Nash wrote this script as well, and produces with Peter Kuplowsky and Shannon Hanmer. “With this sequel, fans can expect an exponential increase of the ol’ ultraviolence with a distinct hook,” Kuplowsky said.
Fantastic Fest Saw It First
A work print of the locked picture screened as a surprise title at Fantastic Fest on September 18, so a festival crowd has already sat through the whole thing. Dread Central’s Mary Beth McAndrews came out praising the practical effects and what she called “some of the best kills of the year,” while taking issue with how far the sequel moves from the original’s experimental approach. Bloody Disgusting’s review names the bigger change: the killer’s-eye-view that defined the first film is largely gone, and Johnny himself is on screen less.
The First One Made $4.2 Million
In a Violent Nature premiered in Sundance’s Midnight section in January 2024, opened through IFC Films on May 31, and finished with roughly $4.2 million domestically and $4.56 million worldwide before arriving on Shudder that September. Shudder and IFC announced the sequel at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2024 alongside a teaser poster, cameras rolled in Canada in September 2025, and Paris sales company Charades took the film to the European Film Market in February.
Barrett has said the performance started with bears. He told iHorror in 2024 that he was after “the movements,” a bear ambling through the woods until the moment it is not, and the way one turns “into a killing machine basically when that happens.” February 12 gives him a camp full of counselors to do it in.
:quality(85):upscale()/2026/11/02/694/n/1922564/7ea620576ae8aefbd71930.32592516_.jpg "The Fashion Collabs Our Editors Are Shopping Right Now, Including Elie Saab x H&M")
