Blood River (2009)

Saturday at the convention was a fun day for me. Even though I had a headache the better part of the day, I still managed to watch a lot of movies. Maybe the most I have watched over a one day period. I talked about my third day there, which was pretty uneventful to be honest, over on my blog. You can also find the review for the movie Quench, which is an indy film. Quench was the first film shown Saturday, followed by another indy film, Blood River. Since I have yet to catch any of the other films that Adam Mason has directed, I wasn’t sure what to expect when going into this one.

Blood River starts with us meeting the happy couple of Clark (Ian Duncan) and Summer (Tess Panzer). They are traveling across the desert to reach Summer’s parents, in order to tell them the good news, that Summer is pregnant. Along the way they see a guy walking, Joseph (Andrew Howard). Clark pulls over to pick him up, since it is hot out in the desert, but Summer tells him to keep going, so he does. The next day, after spending the night at a hotel, they have a tire blow out. Clark is hurt, but Summer appears to be fine. Clark goes to get the spare, that he is sure is there, but there is nothing in the trunk. Since the hotel is a farther walk than a town called Blood River, Clark decides that the town would be the best place to walk to. Once there though, they discover that Blood River is nothing more than a ghost town. Before they can decide on what to do next, Joseph comes walking into town as well. At first he is willing to help them out. Once he gets Clark to walk back to the car with him though, he reveals to Clark that he is an angel sent to punish those that have sined. Even though Clark says he has no idea what Joseph is talking about, Joseph seems to think otherwise.

The first thing one notices about Blood River is the small cast. For the majority of the movie, it is just three actors. The acting becomes very important when you have so few performances to carry the film. Lucky for us, all three of the main characters do a wonderful job. Each do go over the top at times, but it fits so well with what is going on in the plot. The film starts off with a happy couple, and explores what would happen when it slowly starts to head south. Each event adds to force a wedge between the happy couple. The blow out starts it, finding a ghost town adds to it, and Joseph telling Summer that Clark isn’t the man she thinks he is ends up being the last straw. It is an interesting ride. Some things are never explained, which ends up really bugging some people, since everything wasn’t handed to them on a silver platter. Is Joseph really an angel? I don’t know, but he made a pretty convincing argument to me that he is. Is Clark hiding something from his wife? Again I don’t know. Actually this is a point that can go either way. Clark seems convincing that he doesn’t know what Joseph is talking about, and at other times he doesn’t seem so convincing. I think these plot points, and others, are left open on purpose. Now we can decide for ourselves what happened in this film. Isn’t that more fun to do? Getting into a friendly discussion about what happens in a film?

Not all is good though. Like any film, there are good points and bad. We just have to hope that there are more good ones. The one thing that spoiled Blood River for me is when Summer does something bad to Clark. I assumed that they had not been married for a long time, but I also have to assume that they love each other. So when Summer does this to her husband, don’t want to say what happens since it is a big plot point, I was rather disappointed that she would do this, just because he might be hiding something from her. Like us, she never learns what it might be he has done. For all she knows, it could be something stupid like flirting with another woman. Blood River was a film that was good, but I was waiting on the ending to see how well I would end up liking it.

The effects are well done, but not a lot are found. We watch as a finger gets cut off, and there is a wicked gun shot wound to be found as well. Some gory stuff, but don’t let that fool you, it is more about the story than the effects for Blood River. It starts off slow, but quickly builds from there. My friend seemed to enjoy this movie a lot more than I did. I do like it, I just felt a little let down by the end of the film. If you are interested in checking it out, I know that it is being planned to be shown at a film festival in Atlanta sometime in April. After that I was reading that it will get a very limited theater release in May. Looks like it will only be in major cities for the theater release. No word yet on a DVD release.

3 out of 5 Trying to avoid running into one of these angels