Torture and kidnap movies are a slowly waining sub-genre in the the current horror trends as we see a swing toward more supernatural flicks. There are still a fair few of them to be released from the indie circuit and ROGUE RIVER is one of these. A young woman sets off to scatter her fathers ashes and meets an unsavoury couple at the titular river. A simple premise and set up though there are a few nasty surprises along the way.
I do not think it is a spoiler to tell you that Bill Mosely is the bad guy in this piece nor do I think it was the film makers intention to hide that from you. Rather the journey from nice guy to psychopath is a newer path for Mosely, he's not an outright psycho from the get go for once, and ROGUE RIVER is not one of those movies out to re-write the rules of horror but one of those that shows you can still deliver a solid entertaining movie within the confines of expectation and you can play about with those confines a little to. Where I was expecting a bit of a dud I got a nice suprise from ROGUE RIVER at Frightfest where it was good to see most negative expectations overturned to a fairly positive response. It was nice to see a couple of psychos inhabit a clean and normal abode rather than a busted old farm house covere in skulls and skin lanterns.
ROGUE RIVER has a thoroughly nasty streak that I think deserves to be celebrated by more horror folks than have been giving this little indie love. I'm happy enough with half a hard on for this solid and a little depraved tale.
