River of Blood (2024)

My god. My god. My hands are still shaking. I think I pulled a muscle in my neck from jumping so hard. That one part. With the boat. You know the one. Don't even say it. I can't.

Okay. Deep breaths. It’s just a movie. It’s just a movie. But it’s not, is it? It’s like they reached into my head and pulled out all the things I’m afraid of when I’m alone in the dark at 3 AM and then splashed them across a screen in IMAX. I need to get this out before my brain short-circuits.

The whole thing just feels… wet. Even now, sitting here in my dry apartment, I feel damp. Cold. That theater was an icebox, by the way, which I’m convinced was part of the experience. Some kind of immersive torture. The guy next to me, this big dude, was literally hugging himself through the last half hour. We made eye contact once. Just a brief, terrified glance. We understood each other. We were in it together. Survivors.

And the sound. It wasn't just loud, it was… physical. That low, constant hum whenever the river was on screen. It vibrated through my seat, up my spine, and just settled in my teeth. I kept clenching my jaw. I have a headache now. A good headache? I don't know. A headache.

There’s this one shot. It’s stuck in my head like a splinter. It’s not even a jump scare. It’s just Elias, the main guy, standing on the riverbank at dawn. The camera is behind him, so you just see his back and this vast, grey, misty river in front of him. And for like, ten whole seconds, nothing happens. You just hear the water and this faint, almost inaudible whisper on the soundtrack. I leaned so far forward in my seat I think I strained something. I was trying to hear it. I was trying to see what he was seeing. And then his reflection in the water… it blinks. But he doesn’t. It’s a half-second thing. I thought I imagined it. I actually turned to the guy next to me and mouthed “did you see that?” and he just shook his head, looking pale. My skin got all prickly. Goosebumps everywhere. I have no idea how they filmed that. It was just so… wrong.

That old woman, Mara. Her performance was nuts. She barely moved her face, just these dead, ancient eyes. And she says that line. “The river doesn't forget, Elias. It just waits.” She said it so quietly, but it felt like a shout. It’s echoing in my head right now. It’s the kind of line that sounds cheesy written down, but the way she delivered it… chills. Absolute chills. It made me think of that time my grandpa took me fishing when I was a kid, down by that old creek. He told me the water remembers everything that falls into it. Every leaf, every lost lure, every secret. I thought he was just being poetic. I don't know why I'm thinking about that now. It’s not even the same kind of water. Stop it, Alex. Focus.

Honestly, I thought I loved the ending. The ambiguity of it. Him just… walking into the water. Fade to black. Everyone in the theater groaned. But I was like, yeah, yeah that’s the move. Don’t explain it. Let it haunt me. But now that I’m typing this… was it actually kind of dumb? Did they just write themselves into a corner and go “welp, fade to black”? I don’t know. I’m going back and forth. My initial gut reaction was pure awe, but my brain is starting to pick it apart and I hate it. I want to go back to just feeling it. The feeling was better than the thinking.

The cinematography was just… blegh. In a good way? Everything was so desaturated and grimy. It felt like you could smell the mildew on the walls of that old house. Even the flashbacks, which should have been warm and nostalgic, had this weird, greenish tint. Like a memory that’s gone bad. It was all so claustrophobic. Even the shots of the wide-open river felt suffocating.

I’m so tired. My eyes are burning. I keep looking at the dark hallway outside my bedroom door and expecting to see… something. A shadow. A ripple in the air. This is what a good horror movie does, right? It gets under your skin and stays there for days. This isn't just a movie, it's a goddamn parasite.

The popcorn was stale, by the way. A minor detail in the grand scheme of things, but it was. Stale and overly buttery. Tasted like regret. Which, fittingly, is kind of the movie’s whole vibe.

Wait, what time is it? Oh my god. It’s almost 2 AM. I have to be up in like, four hours. This was a terrible idea. A great, terrible idea.

My brain is just soup. River soup.

Okay. That’s it. I’m done. Can’t think about this anymore or I’ll never sleep.

7.5/10. I think. Maybe 8. Ask me tomorrow after I’ve had therapy.

-Alex

The 2024 film River of Blood is available on Prime Video and can be streamed on platforms like Airtel Xstream and Tata Play Binge (through VROTT) in various languages, including Hindi, Telugu, and Tamil. 

Trailer English - https://youtu.be/fs4ng0VptOk?si=LSw8muBNgOvMbfjt

Review Hindi - https://youtu.be/oQht8uWteco?si=GJRoAoDogJfUhCFJ

Review english - https://youtu.be/z8dcxEkTC5o?si=F267n8u7Xk0zdGcv

EXPLANATION english - https://youtu.be/QkpHs-1AYsg?si=sF4CM1bihtrCdYlq

EXPLANATION hindi - https://youtu.be/qVZyhstLY_o?si=uJJaZqaLVhcSG2n2