Such a frustrating disappointment

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Here really isn't much to this film. Kurt plays an atheist sheriff (not that it played into the film) who is attempting to solve murders in a small river town. There really wasn't much acting, not much of a soundtrack and not much of a plot. At first I thought this was an attempt at a Christian slasher movie, but it really failed there too as the heavy religion aspect didn't play any kind of role.As a bad or campy film, it lacks there too. The dialogue was dry. I would say avoid at all costs.Parental Guide: No f-bombs, sex, or nudity. $3.99 for a rental? They need to pay you to watch it. This should be out on some cheap sci-fi 12 pack.

I've seen a lot of movies...good and bad, and from all over the world... but this must be one of the worst movies ever.. Top of my worsts movies is the unbelievable bad Reno 911..but River of Darkness is not so far away, believe me. In a small town down south,there's a sheriff,one of those wrestling guys who have anything better to do than bluff, scream to each other, hit with chairs,and pretend they hurt each other. OK, so this sheriff in a small peaceful town got a killer,he roams around with his truck asking questions to people but anyone seems to really give him an answer.The town must have 15 people because he keeps returning to the same places and asking the same people for help. One of the things that made me laugh was his stare after he saw the dead hanging from the boat, he just stare at nothing like he was actually thinking...LOL. Anyway, his brilliant deputy is so smart or he must have all figure it out by now that he reads magazines and answer the phone. Doesn't matter if it is a troubled woman with her daughter missing or a guy who claims he saw a guy in a burlap sack, he just take his time to react. The sheriff is an unbeliever, so to understand what is going on he thinks the best way is to hear an old lady praying and mumbling apocalyptic words all the time.. Turns out about 30 years ago a group lead by a vigilante name Hix killed an old man and his 3 slow thinking sons because a girl accused one of them of raping. When the "evil spirits" shows up they look like if they felt in mud,reminds me of Schwazzenegger in Predator when he puts mud on his face to cover from the alien heat scanner. The folks in town are mad because they think his sheriff cant and wont do anything about the murders, so they take matters into own hands once more and sends the lead vigilante Hix to the death tied up on a boat in the river. And there you go,simple as they came only God knows why ( anyone in the movie seems to know why they showed up 30 years after )they go away.. So, if you want to waste 1 hour and 24 minutes of your life just go and stare at the water in the toilet..for real

Do you love seeing your favourite WWF/WWE/TNA star battle it out against a bunch of hillbilly swamp-things? If you do, please hide your innocent mind from this giant regurgitated turd of a film...Do you want something to laugh at? Please just watch re-runs of "Friends"... Are you sadomasochistic & get pleasure out of the pain your eyes & ears experience when you watch a really horrible film? PLEASE I BEG YOU, SPARE YOURSELF FROM THIS HELL!Alright let me calm down & explain myself before you all think I'm going off on a tangent. The premise of this story is quite simply explained; a country town (by a river- go figure) suddenly becomes plagued with a series of unexplained slayings. This is where Kurt 'the wannabe rock' Angle steps in as the simpleton hick sheriff who is entrusted with the task of solving these brutal homicides as well as expressing deep emotions at key points & delivering the correct lines from his script on cue (much like his fake wrestling persona I suppose). Anyhow, our buff sheriff with his years of detective work finds himself with no other option but to walk around town brandishing the confidential & explicit crime scene photos to every dog & his aunt in hope of, of uhmm...a confession? Heck maybe he thinks he can get the truth out of one of those demonic redneck fisherman from I Know What You Did Last Summer? So as the plot progresses we find out that the bodies have carvings of the term "HIX" written on them (I would make a joke out of that but I can't be stuffed), anyway the sheriff finds out that this is the last name of a weirdo recluse named Harvey Hix who headed a group of vigilantes that murdered the Jacobs brothers, played by Kevin Nash & Psycho Sid Vicious (don't worry they have no real back story other than being two 6' 10" hobos who never had pro-wrestling careers to begin with).Actually I think that is a touch mean spirited comment by me, I should really praise all of those pro-wrestling fans out there who spend every waking moment of their lives supporting their heroes in films like this. Now enough of the sentiment & back to the plot; so the brothers have been summoned from their watery graves after 30 years because God makes rules about releasing souls after a set time so that they can exact their revenge on the townsfolk who had nothing to do with their deaths- much like how Jason Voorhees takes out his anger issues on those innocent teens at Camp Crystal Lake; actually no sorry my apologies, that exciting comparison is not what this film is like. So anyway that covers about 40 minutes into the plot & I basically daydreamed for the rest of the time so I can only assume that everything ended peacefully with enough room for a sequel.In the very least I think it's safe to class this film as a direct-to-VHS bargain bin trash-fest. However I think that summary is a little too classy & upbeat to truly summarise this seething pile of goat spew accurately. Believe me guys I have seen some bad films; if you don't believe me just look at the list of films I have already reviewed. The actors in an Ulli Lommel film give more heartfelt, genuine performances than most of the actors in this one. Even I struggled to get through it without needing to fast forward through the horribly stagnant dialogue. I have to say without a doubt that this film was the longest 80 minutes I have ever spent watching any film. Don't even buy it if it's the price of a nickel because that metal will be worth more to humanity in the long run than this will be in an eternity!0.5/5

before me, there where 5 users who voted this an average of 7.5/10?!? What is the world coming to if anybody actually thought that this movie was watching? Were the crew voting for themselves perhaps? this movie was such a waste of time and in the end I couldn't even make it to the finish before turning it off. Kurt Angle obviously has serious skill as a wrestler but as an actor he is seriously lacking. unfortunately, he was not even the worse thing about this *cough* "film" *cough* the script/dialog is just pitiful. There is one line from an actor where she says that the bad guys eyes were RED, yet when they show close-ups of Kevin Nash's character his eyes are yellow/orange... the story, pathetic. The casting is a joke - i've seen better acting with more personality from a 1st grade school play. Kurt Angle as the lead was stiffer then a plank of wood yet when he is doing his wrestling promos, he comes across with so much passion and personality. Then the 'special effects' / makeup department... oh my god... in todays age this should just not be allowed. Anybody involved in this abysmal attempt at cinema should be embarrassed enough to crawl under a rock and never come out again. I cannot remember attempting to watch any other film which was this bad, especially considering this site shows they had a budget of $3.26 million, where you look at a movie like Paranormal Activity made in 2007 for an estimated $15K that turned out to be a fantastic movie. Please I implore anybody, do not waste time on this garbage