The camera glides calmly in the opening moments of Joshua Giuliano’s River, a woodsy, bloody good time of a horror flick that played one of the early Midnight Madness screenings at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. We hear a young man and woman flirting in voiceover but see the remnants of a secluded date: a car’s trunk is ajar, beer cans strewn about. The wind rustles the leaves as the sounds of sex begin before they suspect that someone is watching them. The woods are meant to be peaceful and serene and someone watching from a distance is almost more unsettling than someone rushing up on you. That suspicion gives way to the sound of pursuit and violence. How can a place out in the middle of nowhere–a place meant to hold calm, peace and seclusion–be interrupted by such horror? Giuliano’s film has moments where it cuts through you like cool steel on a sweltering summer day–the phrase, ‘Don’t go in the water’ has an entirely new meaning.
A reunion between three siblings does not begin on the best terms. Lucy and Drew (Jane Levy and Max Mattern) seem closer, but that might be because they still live in their hometown while their sister, Jessica Rothe’s Carla, got out of dodge the minute she could. They take their father’s boat out onto the river to visit his favorite spot, toss back some Duke’s, and scatter his ashes. When Lucy prods Carla to say a few words about their departed pops, she doesn’t hold back about her feelings of abuse and infidelity towards their ailing mother. “He’d rather fish than be by her side,” she says. When they realize that the boat has run out of gas, Carla volunteers to swim back, but then they notice a man standing in the greenery on the side of the river, his stare honed in on the family. He gets into the water and swims towards them, and that jolt of uncertain danger sets the rest of the flick into motion before they see an act of violence that forces them to confront the level of danger they have found themselves in–no gas, no cell phone signal, no way out.
When night falls, the siblings imagine that they can wait until morning, but they are attacked from the darkness to let them know that they are still being watched. How these three young people approach survival in the woods on the river made me wonder how they reacted as they grew up together and witnessed their mother’s passing and their father’s neglect. Both Carla and Lucy are headstrong but they confront their resolutions in different ways with Carla wanting to barrel through the fight and Lucy holding back to assess the situation more broadly. Poor Drew reduces himself to a little boy in many moments, looking from one sister to the next and hoping they will be able to guide him through. Make no mistake, though: River is brutal and brutally fun with crossbows, fire, and no mercy, with Levy and Rothe doubling the scream queen quotient.
Most impressively, Giuliano knows the power in waiting. After its Midnight Madness premiere, some audiences equating River with 2007’s The Strangers with how its lingering camera allows viewers to discover the horror in plain sight. Giuliano’s entry goes even further because the majority of the film takes place outside until the third act brings us to land inside a strange house. The Man’s mask reminded me a little bit of Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon but all grown up. And, hey, Giuliano’s film is a terrifying fight for survival…but who says that survival isn’t just reserved from bloodthirsty killers? We all have to grow up before we can outrun the man with the knife. River drags you under the surface and refuses to let you grasp for breath.
