Rogue River.

The second After Dark movie I found in HMV was Rogue River which was released  this year, so extra topical! With a box cover that looks exactly like I Spit On Your Grave... As much as I enjoyed the original I Spit On Your Grave (not that pointless remake and if enjoy is even the right word) I don't come to After Dark for rips offs! But oh well, let's hope this is more enjoyable than Hybird... enjoy!

Rogue River gets off to truly great start and by great I mean a really fucking bad one with an off screen suicide using a very fake looking gun. I mean why show us this? If we already know the ending then the film is now completely pointless! There can't be any tension if we know she is going to die regardless. To answer this, this was all a trick to make us think she committed suicide at the end, when in fact she hasn't. Why do this, it makes no sense and is more likely to put people off than keep them watching...

To be fair on the acting, with how lost the actors often look I'm inclined to say the bad acting is more the fault of the director rather than the actors themselves. I mean Moseley and Jenney do a great job as Jon and Leah, our creepy villains, wildly switching from lovely, horrible and downright creepy. And to be fair on the cinematography, although it is amateurish, we still get some nice shots of locations and stuff, Hybrid's biggest problem concerning cinematography is nearly all of it was set in the car garage. Here it seems they actually found a genuinely idyllic location and used it, rather than relying on stockfootage or sets. Even if a lot of it takes place in a house. This makes me happy.

Rogue River really is as generic as they come. Girl in the middle of nowhere, meets a mysterious stranger who seems really nice, plot contrivances lead her to go home with him, she finds herself in a beautiful home and he has a lovely wife soon things start to get weird before they finally descend into violence. And let me tell you, it's been done a lot better than it has been done here but RR doesn't do these clichés a disservice at least.

The special effects here are awful, not quite the CGI and stockfest that Hybrid was, but I've honestly never seen practical effects look more fake. I normally love it when movies decide to take the practical route but here, it really doesn't work. I also don't get the lighting in this film, I mean isn't it night time? So why is brilliant white light shining through all the windows?

RR manages to be considerably more frightening than Hybrid being that the creepiness of this movie is genuinely unsettling, that being said it perhaps hits the creepiness a little too quickly. I felt the film needed to slow down and it isn't often I find a film moves too fast. This can also be said for the ending too, the film sets up a lot of mysteries. Where did Mara's car go? How'd her brother end up in Jon and Leah's house? What are Jon's and Leah's motivations? We never find out... But all in all, if I thought Hybrid set up a decent, tense atmosphere then this sets up a...white knuckle atmosphere thick enough to cut with a knife. RR is fucked up and weird and not for the faint of heart.

But I don't know, I think the rape scene perhaps goes a little too far. Mara doesn't seem to need much prompt to fuck the barely alive person and she seems to also rather enjoy the whole thing. Then the reveal the guy she fucked was her brother... I feel kinda sick. Especially considering she keeps the baby at the end. Is this supposed to be some kind of symbolism or message or something? Maybe I'd understand if the movie explained something. This isn't the only scene I kinda cringed and looked over my shoulder and thought 'maybe a little too far there, movie...'. However it then follows up with probably the most unique death I've ever seen, suffocating and choking someone to death with the ashes of their Father. Dunno if this is awesome or poor taste, but still, unique no less.

So do I recommend this? Well is the film bad? Surprisingly, no, it's actually pretty good. Despite a rather wobbly start, some lacklustre acting from most of the cast and some crummy special effects it still manages to build some great atmosphere and be really fucking creepy and weird and just an all round decent horror movie. Even if it is all rather generic. What really stops me just recommending this to everyone is that I find this film starts to dwindle into poor taste territory, I know some people don't mind, just look at Human Centipede or a Serbian Film but for people who found those films nothing but disgusting, I don't think this is the film for you. Also, with the fact the film leaves pretty much all narrative to the imagination is bound to alienate audiences even further. For anyone who is left after reading that, this is an After Dark film worth checking out.

Think About It!

-Locke