Sweet River

The movie follows a great idea, and could have been great for Australian cinema, however poor scripting and editing leaves the viewer totally baffled at times as to what is going on and how each scene adds to the story attempting to be told.

A decent-enough film, that you can pass a few hours with.

If you're looking for a non-stop, rollercoaster of a horror movie...this ain't it!

It's a very slow burner, with probably the worst group of child actors you'll see this year. Everything else though, is great!

Here we have a drama film that includes a supernatural subplot which, unfortunately, doesn't lend as much to the film as it could have. It's a pity because I think it could have had the potential to be a genuinely spooky movie, but the real message within is a story about grief and loss, not things that go bump in the night. I watched till the end hoping for dramatic revelations or a great twist that made it worth the effort, but I was disappointed.

The writing of this film lets it down. It's like a car that keeps trying to get up the hill but never gets there. It feels like a first draft script that needed to get pushed to a higher level, which is a shame, because you can tell everyone did their best with what they had.

Darn it. For the first half, this felt like it was building up to be a genuinely creepy horror-mystery, of which there are too few from Australia. Tension never really gets past the first notch, however, and midway through the second half, the vibe is that of a premise that hadn't fully been thought through by the writers, resulting in a flat conclusion that was no more than a less-than-subtle metaphor for grief. What then was the point of the supernatural elements? Nice cinematography, acting is more than commendable with believable characterisations by all involved, but overall this is just a time filler.