River : Fantastic Fest Review

Every once in a while, you watch a filmmaker’s feature debut and immediately know they’re going to have a career. I had that feeling back in 2022 while watching Smile, when it became clear that Parker Finn was someone to keep an eye on. I felt it again during the opening ten minutes of Joshua Giuliano’s new film, River. It sets the stage for what’s to come while announcing that an exciting new filmmaker has arrived on the scene.

Carla (Jessica Rothe) has returned home to see her siblings, Lucy (Jane Levy) and Drew (Max Mattern), but it isn’t a happy reunion. She has come back to help them scatter their father’s ashes along the river where he took his three children so many times. Lucy has cleaned and prepared their father’s boat, but each sibling seems to be handling his death differently.

When the time comes, they take the boat to a particular spot on the river and scatter the ashes. Soon afterward, the boat’s propeller gets caught—but that is about to be the least of their problems. Carla decides to go for a swim, only to notice a masked man standing on the riverbank. He doesn’t look like he has good intentions.

Frightened, Carla begins swimming back toward the boat. That’s when she realizes they’re in serious trouble: the mysterious man has jumped into the water and is chasing her. Worse yet, he isn’t alone. A masked woman is also hunting them, firing at the siblings with a crossbow. Now, the three of them must fight to survive and hope the river doesn’t become their final resting place  as well.

Written and directed by Joshua Giuliano, River strips the slasher film down to its essentials, building the story around characters you care about, a terrific location, and villains worth fearing. Giuliano pulls it off, drawing from his own anxiety about terrible things happening to the people he loves. That personal connection makes the family dynamic hit even harder.

Adding to the atmosphere is the fact that the movie was filmed on actual water. While that created plenty of difficulties during production, the final result reaches a level of authenticity that would have been hard to achieve otherwise. Giuliano understands what heightens fear, using both sound and visuals to make his film just a little scarier than your average slasher flick.

River isn’t afraid to embrace its genre, and it can get quite violent. There are plenty of standout scenes and memorable moments, but the opening is simply brilliant. It begins with the camera slowly panning across an open truck as we hear two people talking and gradually discover what happened the night before. It’s a clever trick that immediately draws you in and sets up the movie’s inventive use of sound and perspective.

The performances only make the film stronger. Levy and Rothe are fantastic, but as good as they are, the movie itself feels like the true star. Giuliano brings all its elements together beautifully.

River makes a strong case that Giuliano could be the next great horror director. He delivers a bloody and enormously entertaining film that horror fans will love—and one you’ll immediately want to tell your friends about.

Brian Taylor

Member of the North Texas Film Critics Association, and lover of all things Cinema