RIVER OF
DARKNESS
A Film
Review
By Daniel Skye
Years
ago, when Blockbuster stores were still a lucrative commodity, I spotted an
interesting B-movie sitting on the new release shelf. The title was End Game and it starred WWE/TNA wrestler
Kurt Angle.
I’m
always up for a good B-movie, so I decided to give it a shot. And I can say
with conviction that End Game was not
a good B-movie.
It
was directed by a man named Bruce Koehler, who showed little promise as a
writer, and even less promise as a director.
What’s
Mr. Koehler been up to since then? Well, back in 2011, he released another
film. This time, he decided to take a crack at the horror genre. The title is River of Darkness, starring Kurt Angle,
Sid Vicious, and Kevin Nash.
Kurt
Angle plays a small town sheriff named Will Logan who investigates a series of
grisly murders. Murders that might be the work of three brothers, the Jacobs
boys, who have returned from beyond the grave to seek vengeance. Nash and Sid
Vicious play two out of the three Jacobs boys. Sounds like it’s got all the makings
of an entertaining B-movie to me.
A
low budget horror film starring three recognizable wrestlers. How could it not
be fun? Well, let’s start off by saying that when Nash and Sid Vicious do
appear, which is not very often, they’re pretty much unrecognizable. The
director decided to cake their faces in some kind of dirt or muck that makes it
almost impossible to tell who they are.
What
could’ve been a fun little film turned into a grueling ordeal, and I couldn’t
wait for it to end. This is the second chance I’ve given Bruce Koehler as a
film maker, and it will be the last.
As
for the acting, not much can be said about Kevin Nash or Sid Vicious. They appear
sporadically, are extremely difficult to spot, and they don’t talk, either. I
think Nash is the only one who spits out a few horrible lines such as “I’m
already dead!” after Angle blasts a hole in his chest with a gun.
Kurt
Angle did a decent job playing the small town sheriff who’s clearly in over his
head. Of course, the dialogue was pretty bland, so there wasn’t much for him to
work with. But Angle tried his best to carry the film on his back.
I’ve
never seen or heard of any of the other actors who appeared in this terrible
accuse for a film, but I assume they were all local hires or people with no
prior acting experience.
The
plot is fairly simple, but the director felt the need to try and add some
mystique to it. He failed miserably. Thirty years prior to the recent murders,
the Jacobs boys were accused of rape. There was no trial, but there was a
conviction, as one of the actors says during the course of the film. A man
named Harvey Hicks started up a group of vigilantes who took justice into their
own hands. Now, the Jacobs boys are back for Harvey’s blood. Like I said, it
could’ve been fun. Instead, it was torture.
The
writing, the editing, the directing, the lighting, the cinematography were all
handled by Brue Koehler, who seemed to put zero effort into the project. As far
as the directing goes, Koehler seems to have only one style: Just point the
camera and shoot. B-movie or not, that simply doesn’t fly with me. You want
people to watch your films and rave about them? Put some effort into it.
I
can carry on this diatribe for hours, but I won’t torture you readers or myself
any longer.
On
a scale of one to ten, I award River of
Darkness with a one. And that’s being extremely generous. Avoid this film
at all costs.
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