Review – The River

The River – ABC – 9:00/8:00pm Tuesday – USA

These are a few of the things that I know about myself: I am a sucker for anything set in the Amazon jungle, I love movies where a creature picks off the cast members one by one, and I enjoy horror movies no matter how dumb they get. What I’m trying to tell you is that The River may be a television show tailored made just for me. Created by Oren Peli, the creator the “found footage” horror film Paranormal Activity, The River takes that same approach to storytelling by using only footage taken by a documentary crew searching for a lost explorer deep in the heart of the Amazon jungle. This is pure froth and while I was certainly expecting to enjoy this series on some goofy level I was not expecting the show be genuinely creepy and successfully hit the mark as a horror adventure tale.

The early parts of The River are easily the weakest as the show unconvincingly sets up its documentary format through an overuse of shaky camera work. If these cameramen were actual cameramen and not actors playing cameramen, they’re probably be fired for not being able to hold a shot steady. Nevertheless The River has to go through this setup to get to the good stuff and like so many monster movies before it the show introduces its cast of stereotypes that will be heading deep into the jungle, presumably to their doom. You could basically take the concept of Anaconda (a movie I love more than I probably should) and replace that search for the ‘lost tribe’ with this search for the explorer Dr. Emmet Cole and have a fair idea of what’s going on.

The cast of characters include Cole’s son Lincoln, his wife Tess, Lena the daughter of a missing camera man who just happens to be blonde and attractive, Clark the evil producer, Emilio the ship’s mechanic, Emilio’s daughter Jahel who only speaks Spanish and is far more in tune with the spirit world because that’s what happens when you’re the only Spanish speaking character, Capt. Kurt the security expert and a couple of wacky cameramen who are obvious comic relief slash cannon fodder. None of these characters are remotely original and the biggest fault with the series is that none of them are terribly likeable either. It’s hard to worry too much about the fate of any of these people when they all act like dumb jerks a lot of time – but then, that may be the point, who wants to get attached to somebody who’s going to end up torn to pieces by mysterious forces deep in the heart of the Amazon?

The River doesn’t really get going until the expedition finds Dr. Cole’s boat The Magus down a part of the river that doesn’t even appear on any maps just so you know how mysterious it is. The Magus is fitted out with security cameras all over the boat and this is certainly Oren Peli repeating all the tricks he learnt with Paranormal Activity but the thing about those tricks is that they work. The documentary work in the early going always feels fake – we know these are actors pretending to be real people and it’s hard to let go of that, but once the show switches to the security cameras on the boat it is far more effective. In the second episode the show also makes great use of shooting at night because there are few things as unsettling as shaky camera footage in the dark where you can’t quite make out everything that’s happening.

The first episode of the two-part premiere is all about setting up the premise of a group of stereotypes getting lost in the Amazon jungle, the second episode is where the show really gets going. What you have to accept about The River is that the plot is going to be reasonably stupid, as it is in most horror movies and most monster movies, but within that stupidity The River finds some fun and creepy ways to mess with us. The team come across a creepy old tree deep in the jungle where disturbing beaten up old dolls hang from the branches. It’s a creepy set piece and even though the idea of a tree with dolls hanging from it in the middle of the Amazon literally makes no sense it works, especially once the dolls start moving when the humans aren’t watching. Coming into this show I was not expecting to be truly creeped out but much like Paranormal Activity before it The River delivers more than a couple of sequences that made me jump and freaked me out.

It’s tempting to brush any scary moments off as cheap thrills but it’s hard to do horror right in film let alone on television. If you like watching a group of people go deep into the forest to be picked off one by one then The River delivers that for you. It’s hard to see how The River sustains momentum over the coming weeks as the mystery surrounding Dr. Cole’s disappearance is almost guaranteed to become tiresome, however working in The River’s favour is that it only has eight episodes in its first season so the story is less likely to sag in that time. The River takes a bit to get going but once it does it’s an effective thrill ride.

Good, Alright, Bad Or Ugly?
Good