Frightfest: Rogue River (2011)

Day two of Frightfest kicked off with Rogue River, a young woman travels out to a remote location to scatter her dead fathers ashes in the water. While there she makes the acquaintance of a kindly man who befriends her after her car gets towed away. Heading home with him to meet his wife, she soon discovers that there is more to this than meets the eye, as she becomes an integral part of a very sick plan.

This is another one of those movies that you could easily let pass you by, one that will undoubtedly fly under most people’s radars. What you have here is something as bitter as I spit On Your Grave, and as twisted as Mother’s Day, with a little bit of Mum And Dad thrown in for good measure.

Veteran horror actor Bill Moseley takes the lead as the  almost unwitting villain, Lucinda Jenney to some degree the more threatening of the two.

Beautifully shot, the film builds the twisted relationship between the two villains rather nicely, the slow awakening of Mara (Michelle Page) to the realisation that these “nice” people are incredibly sick bastards is a little predictable but incredibly well played.

The movies strengths lie in its surprises’, some of which you’ll think you get, but later discover that there is an entirely different conclusion to your earlier perceptions. This is one of those movies that you really need to have a bit of a sick mind to enjoy, in a half filled auditorium the humour of the audience really came out every time something designed to shock came into play.

Kevin Haskin and Ryan Finnerty’s script is filled with punchy statements, which will cause many a chuckle. Most of the best lines are passed to Jenney, who playing the terminally ill Lea, who spends much time looking incredibly gaunt; so when she comes out with the snappy often cutting lines it does have some impact.

While Rogue River is not a bad way to spend 90 minutes, it’s nothing new, it borrows from a number of genre films in an attempt to surprise and shock, if you’re a horror movie fan however it will probably do neither, and possibly lead to disappointment. If you are not someone that lives for horror however this might float you’re boat.