Black River

Yes I can be a bit snotty sometimes about movies, but this obvious mini movie (scenes fade black for the ads) made for enjoyable if semi-predictable viewing. Call me naive but this did last the distance interest wise for me. Maybe my 'Big Brother' dark side was calling? Comparisons to the more darkly humourous 'U-Turn' immediately rise, but what the hell, its' an engrossing subject trapped inside a crazy town... I hope I'm not the only one? Was it just me or everytime Jay Mohr, (seen him before on something?) actually had a good facial expression, they pull a wierd camera angle and lose it? Lisa Edelstien has an attractive allure and made her character the most believable in my opinion. Overall worthwhile, with time to kill afterwards... 6/10

My wife and I have seen this movie more times than the people who made it. We watch it every night before bed. We even created a Facebook group about it that we are the only two members of. I don't actually know if Black River is a good movie it's just our movie. We quote it to each other daily. Were actually watching it right now. For a TV movie based on a koontz book this thing has legs. I just wish we could connect with like minded black river fans and maybe have a yearly gathering where we.... you guessed it.. watch black river. As I read back this review I think maybe I have gone insane and need to seek help. Or I can just watch it again and when it's over and I get up to pee in the middle of the night I just hit play again. I'm going to get a tattoo of the movie poster.

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As a reader of Dean Koontzs' work I looked forward to seeing Black River (originally created as a mini-series but shown in the UK as a short movie). I have always found his work fast paced and well constructed, but I was a little disappointed with this offering as there seemed at times only a tenuous link running through the plot. To me Bo (Jay Mohr) seemed a little 2 dimensional and somewhat lacking in substance. He seemed more interested in finding out who was behind what was going on rather than "getting out of dodge", an aim he professed throughout. I feel that the concept put forward by the author was interesting and could have been handled in a slightly better way. Jay Mohr has in the past delighted me with his performances, however in this case he seemed to have the aspect of someone running around like a headless chicken who shouted all his lines. All in all, a bit of a disappointment.

Normally I've got some investment or interest in a movie before sticking it on, but Black River I went into completely blind. It was simply an algorithm recommendation to me and the synopsis, while not exactly original, sounded vaguely appealing.

I'll admit my heart sunk fairly early on when I was greeted with Dean Koontz name in the credits. Now, I actually quite enjoy Koontz work, but very rarely does it translate well to movie form. Indeed movies based on his works make his rival Stephen King look prolifically successful movie wise.

The movie follows Bo Aitkens (Jay Mohr) a moderately successful Hollywood author leaving LA behind in search of a quieter life following his divorce. While passing through the small town of Black River he is pulled over by the police and sent to the cells. Local Chief Salks (Ron Canada) lets him our and apologises for his erroneous arrest, but informs him his car has been impounded.

Stuck in the town, he encounters its eccentric Mayor Tomas (Stephen Tobolowsky), diner worker Mandy (Ann Cusack) and her recently discovered sister Laura (Lisa Edelstein) but starts receiving menacing phonecalls from someone calling himself Pericles instructing him what he can and cannot do. While menaced by a black SUV and thwarted at every attempt to leave the town by various fantastic means. He sets out to try and find out the town's mysterious secret and put an end to his imprisonment in the town.

Black River is a very strange movie to try and convey my feelings on. It becomes clear we are dealing with a TV movie within seconds, and I always feel like these deserve a bit of a break. These aren't made with huge budgets or great resources, and in all honesty most involved probably never really imagined it would be getting viewed after the initial broadcast, let alone over 20 years later.

Mohr is an actor I know I've seen in several movies, and while I can't name any of them, I feel like he's usually cast as the protagonist's rival for the affections of the female lead, or a jock. Here as a lead...he's a mixed bag. I mean he is working with less than spectacular material, but I'm not convinced we missed out on a great star here. Interestingly, his best moments are the couple of comedy spots which he's a lot more natural at, and even impressive with the timing and facial expressions on.

The rest of the cast? Well, they're tv actors. I don't mean that inherently as an insult, but don't expect anything memorable. Passable, but don't expect to come out looking these guys up for further viewing.

The plot is...I mean if you've watched any sci fi, horror or fantasy tv show in the last 30 years, you've seen an episode with this premise, give or take the antagonist. This doesn't reinvent the wheel, and is silly in places - when Bo tries to leave on foot where do those things that stop him come from? But it's all a rather tired trope. I found it passable, but nothing gripped me, and I feel like in a week's time I'll have forgotten almost all of it.

Still, it's not bad. Had I came across it on tv at original broadcast date I daresay I'd have enjoyed it a bit more. I couldn't honestly recommend seeking it out, but as far as tv movies go? It's a passable waste of time.

'Black River' appears, at first glance, to have all the nescessary ingredients for a bad horror movie. In fact it turns out to be quite watchable sort of Night-Gallery-ish mystery/SF hybrid.

Put it this way, I didn't figure it out in the first 5 minutes. There is enough mystery and strangeness to keep you interested, even though you get the sensation that you've seen this movie several times before on Ray Bradbury's mystery theatre or something.

Based on a Dean Koontz novella(?), a disillusioned writer leaves LA in search of somewhere to put down roots, and ends up by accident in a small town called Black River, which looks like it's probably in coastal Oregon or northern California. Only trouble is, he can't leave. Every attempt to depart is foiled by some unlikely set of events; many of the locals are just a bit weird, there's a mysterious black van following him around, and so on. Something very strange is going on. Is it supernatural, a government conspiracy, or what?

I won't give it away, though to be honest I didn't think the ending was very credible at all, and rather let the film down.

The acting and production values are better than you might expect. What really keeps the movie in the mid-range, score-wise, is a blandness in the direction. There are times when some spooky atmosphere would have been desired, but the thing unfolds in a workmanlike manner, with not a lot in the way of atmosphere.

There is one thing I want to know, though: at the start of the movie, while still in LA, he is looking for a place to bury his beloved golden retriever. Now, in Black River, a dog keeps turning up who is the spitting image of his old pooch (Koontz has a thing for Golden Retrievers I take it, as there was one in Watchers as well). The thing is, you get the feeling the dog is on his side, and at other time that it's part of the 'conspiracy'. Thinking about it logically, I don't see any way that the latter could be true, though this is eventually implied.

Little things like that bother me. Thankfully though, there were no big things that bothered me about the movie. Quite watchable, but perhaps I'd have been disappointed if it were an overnight rental.

A solid 6 out of 10.