River of Darkness

Little disappointed there was no Jack-knife Powerbomb into a boat engine.. that would of been worth 3 stars on its own... Sid an Nash were as good as slashers as they are as wrestlers.. which is high praise. Angle enjoys turtle soup which is oddly intriguing, I would of liked a bit more back story into his turtle eating character.

I love movies of all genres, of any age, regardless of how good or bad they are. But River of Darkness doesn't deliver on any level. So far there have been some gems such as Rango, some mediocre efforts like Sanctum and some poorly conceived movies such as Battle:Los Angeles and Justin Bieber:Never Say Never. But River of Darkness is the only movie so far this year that I downright despise, it is that bad!

River of Darkness is a good example of a movie that is all style, no substance. Saying that does nothing in the film's favour, because production-values wise this film is shoddy. The scenery and sets have an appropriately Gothic look to them, but they are completely ruined by the cinematography and editing which makes the movie look as though it has been edited on a bacon slicer and the lighting which is incredibly dull.

River of Darkness fails epically in the story and writing as well. The story did have a nice arc to it on paper, but the execution was so derivative and poor one couldn't help thinking River of Darkness offers nothing new to the genre. Not one scene is believable in any way, the murders are all gore no heart no matter how marginally impressive the gore is. But that is nothing compared to the dialogue, I have heard some bad dialogue in many movies but River of Dakrness has some of the worst dialogue I have ever heard in my entire life. It is so cheesy and forced, and so clichéd and melodramatic I could not take it seriously at all.

The film's direction is incompetent. In fact the direction is so sloppy that the film could have easily had no direction whatsoever. The characters I felt nothing for whatsoever, they are written terribly and you learn next to nothing about them. The pace is languid so much so nothing comes to life. None of the actors are genuine or brings heart to their characters either.

Overall, a shoddy mess and to be avoided. 0/10 Bethany Cox

I had low expectations going into watching this film as I saw it only to see how the professional wrestlers (Kurt Angle, Kevin Nash, Sid Vicious) did on the screen. I hoped for at least mildly entertaining in that bad horror movie way since the slasher/horror genre is just about the hardest to make truly bad. I was soon proved wrong as this is one of the worst movies I have EVER seen.

Sure enough, all three wrestlers were bad. Kurt Angle seemed to wear the same facial expression throughout the movie. Either he or the director thought it was some sort of deep thought look but I found it to be more of a "why am I here? what am I doing?" look. Nash and Vicious were even worse as they played zombie killers who basically had to emulate Jason and failed miserably. They looked more like animatronic monsters from a failed Disney ride than professional wrestlers who have plenty of experience with fake violence.

To be honest though, I can't blame the wrestlers for their bad acting as everyone else in the move was equally bad. Given the overall crappiness of the movie, I have to place most of the blame on writer/director Bruce Koehler. The plot is the typical slasher/horror plot of three people wrongfully killed by a lynch mob who come back 30 years later as zombies to get their revenge. Not the most original story but one that has worked for others into at least a semi- entertaining movie. Sadly, Bruce's script has the worst dialogue, horrible pacing, and too many plot problems. Seriously, if that is how he thinks police investigate a serial killer then thank God he isn't involved in law enforcement or no criminal would ever get caught. Dear Bruce, please watch a few episodes of CSI and Law & Order next time you want to write about cops.

Bruce can add horrible directing to his horrible writing credit as it appears he was happy with the first take on every scene. The movie also featured some of the worst production values I've ever scene in all their high def glory. The whole movie looked like it was shot under far too bright fluorescent lights. The slasher kill scenes were unimaginative and featured some of the worst, most obviously fake blood ever scene in a slasher flick. I suspect that much of the 3 million plus reported budget went to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain of the cast and crew because it sure didn't go into the special effects or stunts.

Bottom line: if you are a wrestling fan wanting to see your heroes in a movie, skip this one and go re-watch a Steve Austin, John Cena, or Rock film; they aren't great but at least they aren't awful either. If you aren't a wrestling fan you should just run away at the mere mention of the movie.

before me, there where 5 users who voted this an average of 7.5/10?!? What is the world coming to if anybody actually thought that this movie was watching? Were the crew voting for themselves perhaps? this movie was such a waste of time and in the end I couldn't even make it to the finish before turning it off. Kurt Angle obviously has serious skill as a wrestler but as an actor he is seriously lacking. unfortunately, he was not even the worse thing about this *cough* "film" *cough* the script/dialog is just pitiful. There is one line from an actor where she says that the bad guys eyes were RED, yet when they show close-ups of Kevin Nash's character his eyes are yellow/orange... the story, pathetic. The casting is a joke - i've seen better acting with more personality from a 1st grade school play. Kurt Angle as the lead was stiffer then a plank of wood yet when he is doing his wrestling promos, he comes across with so much passion and personality. Then the 'special effects' / makeup department... oh my god... in todays age this should just not be allowed. Anybody involved in this abysmal attempt at cinema should be embarrassed enough to crawl under a rock and never come out again. I cannot remember attempting to watch any other film which was this bad, especially considering this site shows they had a budget of $3.26 million, where you look at a movie like Paranormal Activity made in 2007 for an estimated $15K that turned out to be a fantastic movie. Please I implore anybody, do not waste time on this garbage

oh..come on! seriously??? worst film ever... oh my god...i just cannot believe it! everything about the movie was terrible.

At one point, I actually thought that it was a horror/comedy. But turns out that it's not.

you've gotta be kidding me to actually call this a movie and release it. seriously. I would not even want to get paid to watch this movie another time. horrendous.

Didn't the maker of this movie even watch this once, before he actually went on to release it? oh my god...seriously, this has got to be a joke or something.