Blood River – DVD Review

Distributor: Revolver Entertainment

UK Release Date:  19th July 2010

Format: DVD

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 100 Minutes

RRP: £12.99

Director: Adam Mason

Starring: Andrew Howard, Tess Panzer, Ian Duncan

During my time getting free stuff you get the crud, the generic and the good stuff and then all of a sudden out of the blue comes something masquerading as generic slasher/horror but in actal fact is good and weird.

Meet Clark and his Pregnant wife Summer.  After a tyre blows on their car in the Nevada desert, they find themselves injured and in the middle of nowhere.  Making their way to the nearest town called ‘Blood River’ they soon discover their situation has become a whole lot worse, the town is deserted and has been for some time.

However when all seems lost a drifter strolls across the couples path, his car has broken down and as Summer is left behind, Clark follows Joseph the drifter to the crash site to siphon some fuel only to discover the legnths this mysterious stranger will go to, to show the couple the error of their ways.

Have you ever seen a film where you thought “Yeah yeah, seen it all before” only to break into a song from Evil Dead The Musical called “What the Fuck Was That”?  Well that’s what I did, at first the film seems poorly scripted and Summer played by Tess Panzer starts of in poor form as she doesn’t seem to be all that into her role as newly pregnant mother on the road with her hubby.  This however changes when the “What The Fuck Was That” moment rears its ugly head.

You see this film isn’t really horror it’s more a psychological thriller that will play out generically for the first 20 minutes or so to set up the characters and then it throws the “What The Fuck Was That” curve ball at you but instead of throwing just the one for you to catch it throws a few so you have to drop a couple so you lose the plot a little.

Everything is not as it seems with Joseph the Drifter who after a while becomes creepily alluring, I think it was the hat (YMCA…. Bagsy the Indian!!). Anyhow I can’t really say anything more than had it not been for the “What The Fuck Was That” moment the film probably would have plodded along until it became a remake of Road Kill or The Hitcher which might not necessarily be a bad thing but to be honest, who wants those films remade? Not Me (Yes I realise the Hitcher was remade, that’s not the point… STOP YOUR GRUMBLING!!!)

Blood River for me, was something different that was the same but wasn’t either, it confused me into a state of “This might actually be brilliant or is it just average”? I’m still not quite sure, it didn’t help that I had a stonking headache throughout watching the film but I’m going to lean towards the it was better than average.

It’s a clever story that leads you into uncertain territory and then takes you off the reservation.  It’s worth a watch and definitely worth the price on amazon.

Twists and turns a plenty, Blood River will certainly leave you thinking about it long after its finished.