[Reviews] Movie Night, episode 4 (special edition).
Okay, so I won't be watching movies on Wednesday this week because I'll be in London watching Rob Zombie instead! So here is a special edition of the Movie Night Review to make up for it, proudly presenting a film that I've been looking forward to for several months... and I am happy to say, didn't disappoint!
River of Darkness is one of those films that most people will fail to notice entirely, a certain percentage will pan purely for being what it is, and an enlightened few will embrace to their black little hearts with gleeful delight. As a member of the said enlightened few, I make no apologies for any bias you may notice in this review. But then, that's fitting, because River of Darkness is most assuredly making no apologies for itself either. This is an unashamedly old school and absolutely pureblooded American low-budget horror movie. If you don't like the genre, don't even bother coming in the door on this one - unless, of course, you're a fan of its other associated form of trashy entertainment.
Because this is not just a horror movie, it's a wrestler movie. *grin*
Now, if you're going to cast wrestlers in movies, horror isn't a bad genre to do it in. Pro wrestlers are after all practised actors already in their own fashion, and the sheer size and intimidation factor some of them can deliver lends itself very well to portraying monster-type antagonists while saving on special makeup FX (I draw your attention to Kane's nerve-twisting performance in the similarly overlooked gem See No Evil if you don't believe me). But River of Darkness goes one up on that: not only are two of the three supernatural antagonists being played by "Psycho" Sid Vicious and Kevin "Diesel" Nash, but our leading man here is Pro Wrestling's Only Olympic Gold Medallist(tm), Kurt Angle. And I will freely admit, the wrestling connection is definitely what brought me to the dance here, because the trailer reeled me in but good. There are a lot of low-budget horror movies out there and I haven't half the time to watch all of them; but promise me Kevin Nash in zombie makeup and swinging an axe, and my mark antennae will most assuredly swivel...
So the first thing I want to say is that to my complete fucking surprise, I honestly forgot for the most part that that even was Kurt Angle under Sheriff Will Logan's baseball cap and I enjoyed damn near every minute of this film even when there wasn't a zombie to be seen. Lemme pause for a plot summary: we are in the small river town of Cedar Springs, which is somewhere in the back of Pennsylvania to judge by the number of Pittsburgh tags I saw on boat sterns. People have started vanishing down by the river at night and being found dead and bloody next morning, and the locals are laying the blame on the Jacobs Boys - a trio of river-rat types who, thirty years ago, received smalltown justice from an angry mob after one of them allegedly raped the daughter of the mob-leader. Turns out that Jonah Jacobs was innocent... but now he, his brother and his father are back from the depths they were drowned in and they want revenge. Stuck in the middle of this and trying to figure out what's going on is Sheriff Will Logan, his deputy Caleb, and a group of three young "paranormal investigators" who turn out to have more to do with matters than initially appears. (And I won't spoiler you too much more - this is a movie I want to encourage people to see, not give away the Cliff Notes of!) That's it - pretty simple, classic folklore-horror, could be great, could be awful. It's one of those plots that will give you back just about exactly as much as you put in.
Luckily, writer/director Bruce Koehler obviously loves his profession enough to have put a good deal in. Contrary to what some reviews have said, the script of this movie is serviceable throughout and rises in places to borderline genius - Koehler has a real gift, in particular, for sketching character with dialogue, and where it doesn't work it's usually the delivery that's failed rather than the lines. He peoples Cedar Springs with an array of deftly-observed specimens of eccentric smalltown humanity, ranging from Crazy Mary the resident possibly-schizophrenic religious maniac, to adorable elderly river couple Emily and Wyatt, to Filthy Phil of the Phil 'Er Up gas station whose powers of observation and gift for deadpan are rivalled only by his bad luck at poker. And then there's Sheriff Will Logan himself, a man of some mystery, not to mention character depth - he has the air of a man who has seen much more of the world than those around him, but at the same time he's clearly professionally, spiritually and ethically out of his depth in the murky waters of Cedar Springs' nasty past and haunted present. There's another thing I like about this film, in fact like a lot - it doesn't bother with black and white. The nominal hero is facing a problem that can only be fixed by an action that he can't morally countenance, so he ends up standing helplessly by while others of far less upright conduct try to add two wrongs and make a right. The undead, seemingly pure evil, Jacobs Boys are effortlessly outmatched in depravity by the actions of a perfectly ordinary human being. Good deeds have dark motives, and terrible ones pan out justified. Sure the sets are cheap, the acting is cheaper, and there are missed opportunities here and there - most notably the fact that the name "Hix" is an early clue in the puzzle but not once does anyone say, in reply to Logan's enquiries, "Who are you calling a hick, sheriff?", as that would've made a great hook for a red herring - but this film was made on a budget of less than 3.5 million dollars. For that money, this is an absolute rough diamond of a film.
And very smartly, Koehler's spent the cash in the right places. He's resisted the desire to blow any of it on big gasoline blasts and scenery damage, which is the mistake most cheap films make to try and get a quick pop. Nor has he spent a fortune on attempting gore effects that he doesn't have the resources for, which is the horror-specific version of the same mistake. He's kept his expectations realistic, and it's paid off in a signal lack of cringe-inducing FX failures compared to many films of this type. Best of all, he hasn't fucked up his supernatural element. This is something that I have a bee in my bonnet about, I will admit. So many potentially great horror movies have been ruined for me by a badly made-up, badly acted, or just horribly mishandled monster. Koehler, though, has stuck to what's clearly his personal golden rule: do the bare-knuckle basics, but do them well. For the Jacobs Boys, he's simply hired three of the biggest, scariest bastards he could find, done them up in a ton of blue-black zombie makeup, given them tattered clothes, axes, and awesome yellow-and-red contact lenses, and said: go for it, you guys. Here's some blue light and dry ice, give me what you got. (As Koi pointed out, about the only thing that's wrong is that these are the DRIEST river zombies you ever saw. Why they don't drip, even one bit, is a mystery. Maybe that makeup wasn't waterproof...)
[I am going to just square-bracket this next part though, because it is going to consist entirely of me marking out epically about Kevin Nash looking so fucking awesome/terrifying/smokin' hot like that, and mentioning that I damn near shrieked in glee when he no-sold a shotgun round through the heart from Angle with a look of disdain and a snarled "I'm already dead!" Okay, I'm done, back to the review, cos that part really IS just my bias showing... >.>]
So, in summary, River of Darkness is a hidden gem of an old-style horror movie. If you don't expect an up-to-the-minute actionfest and are prepared to relax a little and go at the pace this film sets, and to take it for what it is and not demand what it isn't, this is an absolutely brilliant use of an hour and a half. If you're a Kurt Angle, Kevin Nash, or Psycho Sid Vicious mark, you'll probably want this just for completism's sake (oh, and let's not forget Ray "Glacier" Lloyd of all people, who's also in this!). Rating: actually, once ratings have been adjusted for average genre standard, this is a 4/5, in my book. Better by far than I was expecting, so props all round!
Favourite line [from the scene where Caleb radios Logan about Crazy Mary causing a disturbance in the church]:
Caleb (on radio): The priest says she's acting... I've got it written down here... he says she's acting... apoc...critical?
Logan: Apocalyptical. *sigh* I'll be right there.
...yeah, the dialogue in this movie may be goofy at times, but only because the characters are supposed to be that dumb. *grin* Love it.
Laters,
Rath
River of Darkness is one of those films that most people will fail to notice entirely, a certain percentage will pan purely for being what it is, and an enlightened few will embrace to their black little hearts with gleeful delight. As a member of the said enlightened few, I make no apologies for any bias you may notice in this review. But then, that's fitting, because River of Darkness is most assuredly making no apologies for itself either. This is an unashamedly old school and absolutely pureblooded American low-budget horror movie. If you don't like the genre, don't even bother coming in the door on this one - unless, of course, you're a fan of its other associated form of trashy entertainment.
Because this is not just a horror movie, it's a wrestler movie. *grin*
Now, if you're going to cast wrestlers in movies, horror isn't a bad genre to do it in. Pro wrestlers are after all practised actors already in their own fashion, and the sheer size and intimidation factor some of them can deliver lends itself very well to portraying monster-type antagonists while saving on special makeup FX (I draw your attention to Kane's nerve-twisting performance in the similarly overlooked gem See No Evil if you don't believe me). But River of Darkness goes one up on that: not only are two of the three supernatural antagonists being played by "Psycho" Sid Vicious and Kevin "Diesel" Nash, but our leading man here is Pro Wrestling's Only Olympic Gold Medallist(tm), Kurt Angle. And I will freely admit, the wrestling connection is definitely what brought me to the dance here, because the trailer reeled me in but good. There are a lot of low-budget horror movies out there and I haven't half the time to watch all of them; but promise me Kevin Nash in zombie makeup and swinging an axe, and my mark antennae will most assuredly swivel...
So the first thing I want to say is that to my complete fucking surprise, I honestly forgot for the most part that that even was Kurt Angle under Sheriff Will Logan's baseball cap and I enjoyed damn near every minute of this film even when there wasn't a zombie to be seen. Lemme pause for a plot summary: we are in the small river town of Cedar Springs, which is somewhere in the back of Pennsylvania to judge by the number of Pittsburgh tags I saw on boat sterns. People have started vanishing down by the river at night and being found dead and bloody next morning, and the locals are laying the blame on the Jacobs Boys - a trio of river-rat types who, thirty years ago, received smalltown justice from an angry mob after one of them allegedly raped the daughter of the mob-leader. Turns out that Jonah Jacobs was innocent... but now he, his brother and his father are back from the depths they were drowned in and they want revenge. Stuck in the middle of this and trying to figure out what's going on is Sheriff Will Logan, his deputy Caleb, and a group of three young "paranormal investigators" who turn out to have more to do with matters than initially appears. (And I won't spoiler you too much more - this is a movie I want to encourage people to see, not give away the Cliff Notes of!) That's it - pretty simple, classic folklore-horror, could be great, could be awful. It's one of those plots that will give you back just about exactly as much as you put in.
Luckily, writer/director Bruce Koehler obviously loves his profession enough to have put a good deal in. Contrary to what some reviews have said, the script of this movie is serviceable throughout and rises in places to borderline genius - Koehler has a real gift, in particular, for sketching character with dialogue, and where it doesn't work it's usually the delivery that's failed rather than the lines. He peoples Cedar Springs with an array of deftly-observed specimens of eccentric smalltown humanity, ranging from Crazy Mary the resident possibly-schizophrenic religious maniac, to adorable elderly river couple Emily and Wyatt, to Filthy Phil of the Phil 'Er Up gas station whose powers of observation and gift for deadpan are rivalled only by his bad luck at poker. And then there's Sheriff Will Logan himself, a man of some mystery, not to mention character depth - he has the air of a man who has seen much more of the world than those around him, but at the same time he's clearly professionally, spiritually and ethically out of his depth in the murky waters of Cedar Springs' nasty past and haunted present. There's another thing I like about this film, in fact like a lot - it doesn't bother with black and white. The nominal hero is facing a problem that can only be fixed by an action that he can't morally countenance, so he ends up standing helplessly by while others of far less upright conduct try to add two wrongs and make a right. The undead, seemingly pure evil, Jacobs Boys are effortlessly outmatched in depravity by the actions of a perfectly ordinary human being. Good deeds have dark motives, and terrible ones pan out justified. Sure the sets are cheap, the acting is cheaper, and there are missed opportunities here and there - most notably the fact that the name "Hix" is an early clue in the puzzle but not once does anyone say, in reply to Logan's enquiries, "Who are you calling a hick, sheriff?", as that would've made a great hook for a red herring - but this film was made on a budget of less than 3.5 million dollars. For that money, this is an absolute rough diamond of a film.
And very smartly, Koehler's spent the cash in the right places. He's resisted the desire to blow any of it on big gasoline blasts and scenery damage, which is the mistake most cheap films make to try and get a quick pop. Nor has he spent a fortune on attempting gore effects that he doesn't have the resources for, which is the horror-specific version of the same mistake. He's kept his expectations realistic, and it's paid off in a signal lack of cringe-inducing FX failures compared to many films of this type. Best of all, he hasn't fucked up his supernatural element. This is something that I have a bee in my bonnet about, I will admit. So many potentially great horror movies have been ruined for me by a badly made-up, badly acted, or just horribly mishandled monster. Koehler, though, has stuck to what's clearly his personal golden rule: do the bare-knuckle basics, but do them well. For the Jacobs Boys, he's simply hired three of the biggest, scariest bastards he could find, done them up in a ton of blue-black zombie makeup, given them tattered clothes, axes, and awesome yellow-and-red contact lenses, and said: go for it, you guys. Here's some blue light and dry ice, give me what you got. (As Koi pointed out, about the only thing that's wrong is that these are the DRIEST river zombies you ever saw. Why they don't drip, even one bit, is a mystery. Maybe that makeup wasn't waterproof...)
[I am going to just square-bracket this next part though, because it is going to consist entirely of me marking out epically about Kevin Nash looking so fucking awesome/terrifying/smokin' hot like that, and mentioning that I damn near shrieked in glee when he no-sold a shotgun round through the heart from Angle with a look of disdain and a snarled "I'm already dead!" Okay, I'm done, back to the review, cos that part really IS just my bias showing... >.>]
So, in summary, River of Darkness is a hidden gem of an old-style horror movie. If you don't expect an up-to-the-minute actionfest and are prepared to relax a little and go at the pace this film sets, and to take it for what it is and not demand what it isn't, this is an absolutely brilliant use of an hour and a half. If you're a Kurt Angle, Kevin Nash, or Psycho Sid Vicious mark, you'll probably want this just for completism's sake (oh, and let's not forget Ray "Glacier" Lloyd of all people, who's also in this!). Rating: actually, once ratings have been adjusted for average genre standard, this is a 4/5, in my book. Better by far than I was expecting, so props all round!
Favourite line [from the scene where Caleb radios Logan about Crazy Mary causing a disturbance in the church]:
Caleb (on radio): The priest says she's acting... I've got it written down here... he says she's acting... apoc...critical?
Logan: Apocalyptical. *sigh* I'll be right there.
...yeah, the dialogue in this movie may be goofy at times, but only because the characters are supposed to be that dumb. *grin* Love it.
Laters,
Rath