Blood River Review

The American desert wilderness has long been a common setting for many thrillers. There is something about the isolation, the sense of being miles from civilisation that taps into audience’s worst fears and dreads. How many films have opened with a seemingly happy couple embarking on a road trip or life changing journey through the centre of the country only for their world to fall apart following a chance meeting with a lone hitch hiker? One of the better examples of the genre is the 1986 film ‘The Hitcher’ starring Rutger Hauer and C. Thomas Howell. ‘The Hitcher’ was an exercise in tension from start to finish with two strong, well written characters for a large part of the film just riding in a car talking to each other with two actors giving career best performances. Hauer’s portrayal of John Ryder was so memorable and chilling it is no surprise that Sean Bean hardly altered his approach to the character when he played the role in the 2007 Michael Bay produced remake.

‘Blood River’, released this month on DVD by Revolver Entertainment, has been compared to ‘The Hitcher’, so I was intrigued to see how the film stands up to that genre favourite. Directed by British born Adam Mason, a music video veteran having previously worked with the likes of Cradle Of Filth, Within Temptation, Dragonforce and Sikth before graduating to feature films and moderate cult success with ‘Broken’ and ‘The Devil’s Chair’. The film begins with a nicely shot opening sequence of the Nevada desert landscape in which the film is set. Filmed on digital video throughout, the film does have an impressive cinematic look to it which won the film’s cinematographer, Stuart Brereton, the Film Competition Award for Best Cinematography at the 2009 New York VisionFest.

Following the opening titles, we join a newlywed couple mid-road trip, Clark played by Ian Duncan and Tess Panzer as his pregnant wife, Summer. Shortly after failing to pick up a lone hitch hiker they have a blow out and crash their car in the middle of the desert. On realising they have no spare tyre they are forced to continue on foot to the next town, ‘Blood River’. On arriving in the town they discover it has been long been abandoned and is now just a ghost town resembling an old wild west town complete with dead animals , empty shacks and even a set of gallows. Alone at first they are soon joined by the lone drifter they left by the side of the road, Joseph played by Andrew Howard. He offers assistance to the couple but soon begins a series of mind games with Clark placing the happy couple vulnerable to the mysterious stranger’s sinister schemes.

If this all sounds very familiar then that would be one of the main problems I had with this film, it really does not offer anything new. The clunky dialogue and cliché ridden script seemed like an amalgam of many other, better films such as ‘Cape Fear’ and ‘Wolf Creek’. Lines such as “This isn’t happening” and “We gotta stick together on this one” are delivered so poorly it just sounds as though the actors are reading their lines from the script and are just not convincing at all. As a result there is no real sense of threat or danger, at least during the slow, first hour of the film.

The film’s Sixties period setting seems fairly pointless, it appears that the only reason for this is to emphasise Joseph’s hippie ideology about the sins of “working for the man” and not wanting to conform. Joseph, is a combination of cowboy and preacher man, permanently squinting and spouting lines from the Bible. Welsh actor Andrew Howard pulls off a convincing American accent, channelling the voice of Michael ‘Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer’ Rooker. The film starts to take shape on his arrival but as with Clark and Summer his character is not fully formed and there is no explanation as to why he has such influence over his victims. In an early scene he manages to convince a barmaid to slash her own wrists simply by quoting religious scripture.

One aspect I did find surprising was how tame the violence was in the film. In this age of ‘torture porn’ with graphic depictions of violence now common place, ‘Blood River’ chooses not to show the gruesome details with much of the violence taking place off screen. I am unsure whether this was an artistic decision or more a case of not enough money in the budget to effectively show the intended brutality, in either case it certainly won’t appeal to the ‘Saw’ crowd. Even the customary finger cutting scene, so common these days in horror films, will not be enough to whet the appetite of the average gore aficionado.

The disc presents the film in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1 making the most of the film’s landscape setting. As you may expect from a digital source the picture quality is very clear but does not disguise the fact that it was shot on video, no Michael Mann style grain here. No extras were available on the disc I was provided with but I understand the extras on the retail disc will include an audio commentary from the director and a 30 minute making of featurette.

‘Blood River’ does not come close to matching the intensity of ‘The Hitcher’, the only real connection between the two is the desert setting and basic character set up. The similarly low-budget ‘Wolf Creek’ is also a much better example of this kind of ‘outback’ terror. ‘Blood River’ simply does not offer anything unique or inventive and by the end left me feeling unperturbed by all that had gone before.