FESTIVAL REVIEW
After opening with films like The Substance and Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie in recent years, it is easy to approach TIFF’s Midnight Madness opening night with perhaps unfairly high expectations. It is only natural, then, to feel a little disappointed when this year’s selection, Joshua Giuliano’s River, turns out to be a good but ultimately derivative slasher that rarely pushes beyond what the genre has already achieved. The good news is that Giuliano’s feature debut still delivers where it counts, with enough gnarly kills, shocking moments, and tense setpieces to make for a fun experience with a packed festival crowd, anchored by two terrific performers who know this territory very well.
Jane Levy and Jessica Rothe play two estranged sisters who reunite with their younger brother (Max Mattern) after the death of their father, setting out on a remote river to scatter his ashes at his favorite spot. Their boat soon breaks down, cell service disappears, and a very tall masked man (Dane DiLiegro) emerges from the woods, looking suspiciously up to no good.
River generally succeeds at the two things that matter most: making us fear the imposing figure hunting these characters and giving us enough reason to care about the siblings being hunted. Giuliano is particularly good at staging the chase, finding tension in a pursuit through the water, with one character swimming after another (always a favorite of mine), and later making clever use of darkness, light, and darts, including a terrific shot of one flying directly toward the camera. Another tense and effective setpiece has the killer chasing the girls on foot while they are riding a bicycle.
Yet, no matter how cool it looks, we need to care about these characters, and the film achieves this by spending considerable time on the usual getting-to-know-you scenes before the carnage begins; none of the estranged family dynamics are remotely new, but Levy and Rothe make them work. Once horror strikes, both slip comfortably back into their scream queen personas, bringing enough strength to their characters that we can fear their increasingly disadvantaged positions while still believing, and hoping, that they might somehow make it out alive.
Unfortunately, the film relies on a series of distracting conveniences, including the killer being occasionally courteous enough to give his victims breathing room, but the bigger frustration comes when characters stop mid-action instead of completing the one deed that could finish the film. It is difficult to understand, for instance, why the killer does not simply climb into the boat when he first has the opportunity, especially when all three siblings are still shocked and vulnerable. Worse is a major late cop-out that walks back what initially feels like one of the film’s bravest decisions.
None of the setpieces reinvent the slasher, but they are tense, occasionally nasty, and deliver exactly what a packed Midnight Madness crowd wants from this kind of movie. Yet, it is easy to see River receiving a warmer response from a screaming festival audience than from someone eventually watching it alone at home, where its familiar construction and conveniences will be harder to ignore. Still, Giuliano understands the basic pleasures of the genre well enough to make these 92 minutes fun, even if TIFF’s coveted opening slot had me hoping for something considerably more ambitious.
- 1Everytime
- 2Hadestown: The Musical
- 3Minotaur
- 4You Can See Everything
- 5Hope
- 104River#104 of 226
- 1Minotaur
- 2Wild Horse Nine
- 3The Man I Love
- 4The Unknown
- 5La Gradiva
- 29River#29 of 54
- Where to watch
- Coming soonJan 15, 2027
- Where to watch
- Coming soonJan 21, 2027
Play trailer
- Original title
- River
- Director
- Joshua Giuliano
- Cast
- Jane Levy, Jessica Rothe, Max Mattern, Dane DiLiegro, Mickey Dolan, Addison Smith, Aubree Liscotti, Westley Bator
- Rated
- R
- Screenwriter
- Joshua Giuliano
- Composer
- Mike Schanzlin, Mike Griffin
- Cinematography
- Nick Matthews
- Editor
- Thom Newell
- Country
- Language
- English