For my latest assignment I was sent River of Darkness, written and directed by Bruce Koehler. Koehler’s second film, River of Darkness is set for release March 29th and stars wrestling’s Kurt Angle accompanied by Kevin Nash and Sid Eudy.
The plot: Set in the backwoods south, River of Darkness takes place in a small town of.. I don’t know maybe 30 people? When a series of “mysterious” murders occurs the townspeople turn to Sheriff Will Logan (Kurt Angle) to solve the mystery and save the town. It is soon learned that the murderers were a family of river squatters known as the Jacobs, back from the grave to avenge their wrongful executions. While the sheriff is skeptical, he soon becomes a believer. (and by soon I mean he has maybe two conversations about it with a freaking bait shop owner and is thus convinced) Now knowing the story of how the Jacobs were wrongly accused of rape and killed by the townsfolk, the sheriff prepares to.. well.. he doesn’t have a plan per se, but he will look conflicted and mad in front of the camera. Then there is the group of meddling kids (sadly no dog) out to hunt ghosts with an EMF detector that looks like it was pulled out of a box of cereal. That’s right, this movie juggles 2 whole plot lines at once!
You later find out one of the ghost hunters is either the granddaughter or daughter of the ring leader from the Jacobs killings Harvey Hix (hehe Hix). You don’t really know because she claims to be one then the other in seperate scenes. Concdering the town however, she may be both. Later a couple of townsfolk (Clark Higgins, Roy Carter and Russel Reeves) get the brilliant plan to kidnap Hix and give him over to the Jacobs, which given the plot would likely start the undead killing process all over again with a new villain.
River of Darkness – Trailer by dreadcentral
Impressions: I can honestly say, though Gummo held the title for years that this is the worst movie I’ve ever seen. The entire thing looks like it was shot by a Flip, with no interesting cinematography or filters to try and save this. The movie is roughly 1 hour and ten minutes long and sports only three songs for a soundtrack. Think about that for a second; when was the last time you saw a movie with three songs in it? There was nothing to distract the viewer from the terrible plot and acting, making it even more apparent just how horrible the movie actually was.
As for special effects, the undead villains look worse than something you’d see on Charmed or Battlestar Gallactica. The thin and translucent “blood” looks like they dipped a Crayola marker in water and used that. (to save money they probably used the same marker Koehler used to write the script) When Logan shows the police photos, it seems the shots were taken by a disposable camera. Honestly, there was a 3.3 million dollar budget. Now I know that is very little for a movie but it looks like they spent 2 million paying everyone, 1 on equipment and the rest on drugs, which probably killed roughly as many brain cells as watching this train wreck.
As far as acting is concerned, it’s about what you’d expect from professional wrestlers, equivalent to a second grade production. Kurt Angle was the best actor in the film and I’m sure Koehler gave him a gold star and put it on the fridge for everyone to see.
In conclusion, everyone associated with this film was likely part of a career suicide pact. Lets all just hope it was a successful attempt. I swear if they make a damn sequel to this pathetic movie…..
‘Till next time,
-Scotty A-town
i gunna watch this film