Michael Fairbanks
Joshua Giuliano’s woodland slasher River could’ve easily been a subpar cheepie pawned off to excitable horror fans desperate to see millennial final girls Jane Levy (2013’s Evil Dead) and Jessica Rothe (Happy Death Day) on screen together. Thankfully, Giuliano has revealed himself to be an enticing force in a time where horror is becoming the genre to establish a relationship with audiences. While its premise may bring to mind done-to-death franchises like Friday the 13th or The Strangers, River is far more artful than your average red-meat gorefest. Giuliano traps a group of anguished siblings in a hellishly intimate nightmare scenario which forces them to act on their inherent drive to protect one another. The simple thrills one expects from this type of film are here but this time, it’s hard to take pleasure in anyone’s suffering.
We meet Lucy (Levy), Drew (Max Mattern) and Carla (Rothe) as they reunite at their father’s home to spread his ashes. They embark on a boat trip to hold a minimalistic funeral service on his favorite river. Lucy and Drew have compassion for him despite his flaws. Carla could not stand him to the point of isolating herself from everybody. As that uncomfortable ceremony comes to a close, they discover that the boat has stalled. Earlier, they ran over a floating object thinking it was an animal. Turns out – it was a dead body – and the shirtless man wearing a skin-textured mask (Dane DiLiegro) is waiting on shore to take his next victims.
The tension between Levy and Rothe is perfectly wound. They’re both ornery but in polar opposite cadences. Lucy is a bit more gruff. She in some aspects now assumes the role of their father, understanding the layout of the woods and handling the boat repairs as best she can. Carla is a city girl who is selfish in some respects but also entirely valid in her instinct to run away. Both tap into their strength throughout River – although Levy is handily the standout. She’s the person who we believe might be able to survive this situation in real life. Max Mattern finds himself a bit stuck in the middle. His performance is perfectly fine but Drew is just a soft pile of putty who completely leans on his sisters. The situation they find themselves in is horrific enough to understand why someone like him would go a bit catatonic, there’s just never a moment where he is the most engaging character.
Naturally, not everyone survives. The smallness of this cast ensures that no loss is taken for granted. There’s a rich sense of dread and devastation that runs through every taut directing choice from Giuliano. He opens with a rather unique sequence in which we see remnants of the brutal murder of a young couple while hearing the audio of the moments before they are attacked. This establishes a controlled but quite expressive sense of form that runs through the whole piece. The central stretch where everybody is trapped on the boat is the most expressive. The prospect of our killer lurking on land is eerie enough, but then Giuliano transitions from day to night through a montage that feels as though this fiend is changing the elements by his own will. Once it gets dark – we know that he can be lurking anywhere. There is always a bit of cooldown before his next attack so when a harpoon comes flying out of the darkness, for example, it is a total shock. It is as if we are in the POV of three helpless animals the moment before a poacher takes them out.
Wisely, Giuliano does not confine the whole story to the river. Eventually, we ditch the boat for some admittedly more conventional but no less suspenseful set pieces. This segment involves a clever subversion of what type of personality we’re expecting from this killer. It is welcome, since there is a mildly stereotypical quality to his earthy look and handmade murder techniques that might’ve played poorly if not given more depth. What we do learn makes him all the more terrifying, while leaving just enough to our imagination to wonder about the depraved life he has led.
River is proof that innovation is not the only way into horror. Sometimes, it’s just about a filmmaker taking a classic setup and injecting their unique brand of morbidity. This is one of the best slasher films in some time because of how seriously it takes its circumstances. It’s not a kitschy Grindhouse throwback like X or Terrifier, specifically designed for midnight audiences to cheer at. It’s a resonant family drama that happens to be interrupted by a sadistic murderer. If anything, it feels closest in cadence to the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Sometimes, normal people pay a hard price for simply taking a wrong turn.
