Rogue River
Directed by Jourdan Mcclure
Starring: Bill Moseley and Michelle Page
Available from Lionsgate
Reviewer: Horrorphilia Jason

The Lowdown: An odd torture horror movie featuring solid performances, an Ok script, and a predictable ending.

Mara’s father has recently passed and she is headed to spread his ashes over the lake he loved to fish at. While at the lake, her car gets towed or stolen and she reluctantly accepts a ride from a friendly stranger she meets named Jon (Bill Moseley). Being so late at night, she accepts the invitation to eat dinner with Jon and his wife, and stays in their spare room for the night. After an awkward encounter with the wife that results in Mara cutting her hand, and being forced to have it sewn up, Mara figures out there is something wrong with the couple. That night she is awoken to find Jon walking around in his underwear and acting very odd. Jon kicks her out for being rude, then later recaptures her, ties and tortures her, thus becoming their latest victim.

Yeah I know that plot summary was spoilery, but it’s fairly obvious from the beginning that something is up with Jon and his wife. Usually when someone insists you spend the night in a horror movie, they are up to no good. The first half of the film is slow paced, but its strange enough and there’s enough tension to keep you interested. I was onboard and thought it was pretty cool up to this point. Then when shes recaptured and tortured then the movie sorta fell apart for me.  The way she is tortured was intense, simple, but was really effective. One of the most painful torture acts that I’ve seen in a movie yet.

The acting was solid from Bill, who was a slightly less subdued character than he normally plays. My only wish is that there was more screen time from the wife. Her character was intriguing and I wanted more background from her character. Overall it was above average acting for this type of film.

The rest of the movie was cliched and kinda just ho hum. A cop comes searching for the missing woman, he has to be dealt with, the woman finds a way to escape and other obvious things happen. There was also a really stupid mistake that leads to the death of someone that you can see from a mile away. The ending confrontation was less than satisfying and the movie just ended with a thud. It’s a shame cuz there was a lot of elements that I really enjoyed in the first half. They should have just kept up the weird rituals and added more psychological torture, which would have made the movie seem more original and help flesh it out a bit. It’s  one of those movies that I wasn’t pissed that I saw it, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to seek it out.
Final Rating: 6/10
 

Related articles

• Bill Moseley Talks About Rolling Down the Rogue River(dreadcentral.com)

  ---