Joshua Giuliano’s slasher debut, River, has made quite the splash on the festival circuit. The IFC and Shudder production unexpectedly sold to Universal and Blumhouse Atomic Monster for $10 million in an unprecedented move, and I now understand why. It’s giving cult-kissed The Strangers vibes but afloat: “Because you were on a boat” should be the tagline. There’s nothing more than a fight for survival against monstrous killers praising some unseen god in the sky—random acts of sick, torturous violence. Giuliano captains a slick and unforgiving genre standout with nary a novice’s uncertainty; steady as she goes into blood-stained waters.
Jane Levy and Jessica Rothe star as estranged sisters who reunite back home after their drunkard father’s death. Lucy (Jane Levy) was the tomboy her pops favored; the daughter who could fix an engine, talk shop, and crack brewskies. Carla (Jessica Rothe) was the feminine disappointment, criticized for her looks and behavior until she could move away and never look back. But Carla wants to support Lucy and lil’ brother Drew (Max Mattern) in their time of grieving. Lucy plans a memorial voyage: cruise his boat to his favorite under-bridge spot and scatter his ashes. Unfortunately, they run out of gas and find themselves stranded—with a masked killer (Dane DiLiegro) watching their every move.
Levy and Rothe are as fantastic as you’d expect together, playing at-odds siblings in an unthinkable scenario. River‘s examination of grief is interrupted by DiLiegro’s psycho; opposing feelings about their parents fade into perspective. Rothe’s teary-eyed speech about the cheating alcoholic who spent days soaking in sunlight while their mother suffered in a hospital bed cuts to the core (much to Lucy’s resentment). Insults are hurled that neither truly means, but family bonds are complicated, and having the trio face a life-or-death gauntlet highlights the pettiness of their squabbling. Survival means more, as verbal “I hate yous” are replaced with selfless acts of devotion.
Ex-basketball athlete DiLiegro has spawned a fast career playing monsters (Prey, Imaginary, Werewolves) and “big men” (Running Point), but River feels like a step forward. It’s DiLiegro’s Terminator-esque blankness as he pursues his targets that’s sheer ferocity; his dead eyes peer from behind a fleshy, hyperrealistic mask. Gym Bro Michael Myers? Wearing only swim trunks, he flaunts his chiseled physical prowess while pursuing the trio of mourning innocents. He rises to the challenge of projecting muted evil with no body costume or prosthetic makeup to hide behind; an otherworldly beast of flesh and bone. He’s basically a lump of clay molded like the devil into a killing machine, which makes his unexplained arm gestures toward the heavens after another elimination even eerier.
Giuliano’s vision is both artful and barbarous. The way fog rolls across glassy waters at night, how bright-red flares burn through the sky, and especially how he collages these close-up shots of the cast’s terrified faces lets cinematographer Nick Matthews shine. Then there’s the breathless action of it all, as Matthews captures all-out sprints across grassy terrain without letting you know if DiLiegro is within snatching distance. An opening sequence where the camera slowly pans over a date-turned-crime scene is narrated by the living characters before their fatalities, as a haunting alternative to opening with a stereotypical first kill. It’s thoughtfully structured to keep audiences in distress, which Giuliano achieves beyond the gushing violence that pulls from the bleakest, knife-to-your-gut depths of hunter-killer horror fare.
River is a bulldozer of a debut from Giuliano. It’s nothing more than a family pulling together and defending themselves against exquisite malevolence, but success is born from simplicity. Performances shine, kill sequences ring like gunshots, and misery blares on high. We don’t need to know what’s possessing silent swimmers to massacre anyone who floats down their way; as The Strangers proves, when executed correctly, horror thrives on the unknown. River learns from the best and takes the darkest, most intimately frightening lessons to heart.
Movie Score: 4/5