cactuswatcher (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cactuswatcher) wrote2012-02-08 09:20 am
cactuswatcher) wrote2012-02-08 09:20 am
The River
Near the beginning of the show red-shirt/soon-to-be-dead guy meets girl crewman who for less-than-clever story reasons only speaks Spanish. Trying to communicate with her, he starts off babbling in high-school French. In the only truly prophetic moment on the show, she shakes her head and mutters in Spanish "American education!"
The River is old-fashioned horror. By long tradition horror in movies and on TV is written by the dumbest people available and you make up for their short comings with spooky music, special effects and cheap camera tricks. This show certainly isn't going to break those fine traditions.
The lame background story is that a very experienced TV nature show host has discovered that real magic exists in a remote part of the Amazon basin and goes looking for it with a small portion of his old filming crew. He promptly disappears and after six months the people behind his nature show decide to make a fast buck and fund the rest of his crew and his wife to film a combination rescue mission/reality show. To add to the show they insist that that the show host's adult son goes along. Naturally the son hates the dad, and only goes because his nagging mom insists. Spanish speaking girl is the daughter of the guy who knows how to keep the boat running. The only link to magic in the group is the heartless producer/director who is played by Paul Blackthorne the guy many of us remember fondly as Harry Dresden. He even wears his Harry Dresden stubble which never gets shorter or longer. Thomas Kretschman is the weapons guy. (What the hell they need a weapons guy for is not disclosed.) He's best known for playing honorable World War II German officers in German and English language films. As Captain Brynildson on the show he's got the firepower to hold off the national armies of every country in South America. Naturally, so far, he's only shot at shadows. Eloise Mumford plays Lena, the mandatory pretty-girl-who-always-seems-to-wear-less-than-adequate-clothing-for-tromping-around-in-a-jungle.
All of the characters are supposed to be experienced in the Amazon jungle. But they all act like the closest any of them ever was to any jungle was Miami Beach. It would be nice if any of these people who, according to the story, have all been around the filming of a nature show for decades acted like they'd ever watched a nature show. In the first ep they find the distress beacon very quickly. The wife is ready to plunge ahead to find her husband. Some genius says, "We don't even know which way to go!" Fella, on a river you've got two choices - upstream and downstream. You've been downstream. Even these clowns figure out they need to go upstream. They find the husband's abandoned ocean-going ship. (What the hell this tub is doing so far up river is known only by the producers of the River). The first monster makes an appearance, sinks the little boats they arrived in and kills off the red-shirt. They have to get away, so they cleverly decide to escape at *high tide*. Repeat *high tide* on a river a thousand miles from the ocean. Some of these writers really need to get out of LA occasionally. Unfortunately they succeed and survive, though not from want of trying not to. Case in point - Lena is severely cut on the leg as the monster first escapes the ship. Handily the son is almost-a-doctor and sews up her leg. Beng well versed in survival Lena jumps in the river within hours to help clear brush away from the ship. You want magic? Having throughly soaked her wound in river water, Lena's leg is not infected and swollen to the size of a basketball the next day. Indeed she's skipping around like nothing happened. (Let's ignore that there are piranha in places in the Amazon basin. They wouldn't eat her up, but wouldn't do her already wounded leg any good.)
No need to pick at this show much more. Either you love horror and are willing to forgive it all or you wonder why the characters keep talking about turning the boat around and going back when the channel they are shown in is visibly too narrow to turn the boat around in.
The River is old-fashioned horror. By long tradition horror in movies and on TV is written by the dumbest people available and you make up for their short comings with spooky music, special effects and cheap camera tricks. This show certainly isn't going to break those fine traditions.
The lame background story is that a very experienced TV nature show host has discovered that real magic exists in a remote part of the Amazon basin and goes looking for it with a small portion of his old filming crew. He promptly disappears and after six months the people behind his nature show decide to make a fast buck and fund the rest of his crew and his wife to film a combination rescue mission/reality show. To add to the show they insist that that the show host's adult son goes along. Naturally the son hates the dad, and only goes because his nagging mom insists. Spanish speaking girl is the daughter of the guy who knows how to keep the boat running. The only link to magic in the group is the heartless producer/director who is played by Paul Blackthorne the guy many of us remember fondly as Harry Dresden. He even wears his Harry Dresden stubble which never gets shorter or longer. Thomas Kretschman is the weapons guy. (What the hell they need a weapons guy for is not disclosed.) He's best known for playing honorable World War II German officers in German and English language films. As Captain Brynildson on the show he's got the firepower to hold off the national armies of every country in South America. Naturally, so far, he's only shot at shadows. Eloise Mumford plays Lena, the mandatory pretty-girl-who-always-seems-to-wear-less-than-adequate-clothing-for-tromping-around-in-a-jungle.
All of the characters are supposed to be experienced in the Amazon jungle. But they all act like the closest any of them ever was to any jungle was Miami Beach. It would be nice if any of these people who, according to the story, have all been around the filming of a nature show for decades acted like they'd ever watched a nature show. In the first ep they find the distress beacon very quickly. The wife is ready to plunge ahead to find her husband. Some genius says, "We don't even know which way to go!" Fella, on a river you've got two choices - upstream and downstream. You've been downstream. Even these clowns figure out they need to go upstream. They find the husband's abandoned ocean-going ship. (What the hell this tub is doing so far up river is known only by the producers of the River). The first monster makes an appearance, sinks the little boats they arrived in and kills off the red-shirt. They have to get away, so they cleverly decide to escape at *high tide*. Repeat *high tide* on a river a thousand miles from the ocean. Some of these writers really need to get out of LA occasionally. Unfortunately they succeed and survive, though not from want of trying not to. Case in point - Lena is severely cut on the leg as the monster first escapes the ship. Handily the son is almost-a-doctor and sews up her leg. Beng well versed in survival Lena jumps in the river within hours to help clear brush away from the ship. You want magic? Having throughly soaked her wound in river water, Lena's leg is not infected and swollen to the size of a basketball the next day. Indeed she's skipping around like nothing happened. (Let's ignore that there are piranha in places in the Amazon basin. They wouldn't eat her up, but wouldn't do her already wounded leg any good.)
No need to pick at this show much more. Either you love horror and are willing to forgive it all or you wonder why the characters keep talking about turning the boat around and going back when the channel they are shown in is visibly too narrow to turn the boat around in.
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I got a chuckle out of your comment about fixing the leg wound and then jumping in the river not too long after that-- I instantly thought the exact same thing that you did about the wound getting infected when that scene occurred. What was I saying just a few days ago about technical faux pas dropping me out of the story?
In general, I'm getting tired of most modern attempts at horror because the people are all so freaking stupid, and in this show they were really, really stupid, not to mention inconsistent. Like the son who seems to accept magical events one moment and five minutes later is all "this can't be happening! It's not possible!"
In fact, I'm getting tired of magic in entertainment in general. In specific, I'd give The River a 2 on a 10 scale.
Ya know, Ringer wasn't half bad the last two episodes.
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Ya know, Ringer wasn't half bad the last two episodes.
That's part of my problem! LOL. I was really into enjoying how bad it had been. Not excruciatingly bad, just silly, charming bad.