River of Darkness

Dreadful acting throughout weigh down this moderately enjoyable slasher/ghost DTV. Undead victims of a smalltown lynching come back from the dead to take their revenge on the hicks responsible for their murder.

Good production values and regular slashings help salvage this very uninspired offering. This was meant to cash in on wrestling fans, and to be honest, I've seen much worse movies, but God, the acting. And the lead is not entirely responsible, everybody here does an absolutely terrible job of conveying the simplest emotions. A woman who just lost her child to the undead is particularly amateurish, and one paranormal researcher looks ready for Skinemax. One of the zombies is a dead ringer for 'Dog' Chapman. If you're not regarding, this can entertain you for 90 minutes.

WOW!!!! This is one word I can use as being tremendously awful. Where does someone begin with a film like this. Storyline was absolutely uneventful, characters were nothing short of uncompelling, cinematography was lacking throughout and the editing was sub-par at best.

Why do wrestlers insist on going into acting, Kurt Angles performance was sour and collectively did not fit the character.

The combination of slasher/paranormal/undead pairing was an utter "bomb".

Terrible, clueless, dreadful are words to describe the acting throughout the film. In fact this is pure garbage and in this film collector's eyes should have never been made. The audience as well as actors and people who worked on this film should all be given refunds for how terrible it is. It is 1hr 30 minutes of your life you'd like a refund on.

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

Will Logan, a sheriff protecting his town from the resurrected Jacobs brothers (Nash, Sid and Bill Laing), siblings who were lynched long ago and are back to seek revenge from beyond the grave. When unspeakable evil falls on a quiet river town, Sheriff Logan (Kurt Angle) is thrust into a chilling nightmare of death and mayhem. He is confronted with a series of horrific murders, each more viscous than the last, and soon learns of the community's seedy past and the evil that has risen from purgatory to exact revenge on the town. When Sheriff Logan discovers that the murders are committed by the spirits of old river squatters, the Jacobs Boys, the town explodes into an battlefield of blazing guns and zombies.

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.