Riverplay

Olaf Ittenbach has made himself a name among splatter freaks in the German language area, and aside from Andreas Schnaas ("Violent S***" trilogy) and Andreas Bethmann ("Der Todesengel") he was the most active so called "amateur" splatter director in the 1990s. His first three movies "Black Past", "The Burning Moon" and "Premutos" are entertaining gratuitous gorefests with excellent gore effects and technically quite good (except for the dialogue that was always poorly dubbed during post production). But without a doubt, his three gorefests are superior to the work of the to Andreases mentioned above.

So when "Riverplay" came out, the German Splatter scene was quite irritated and often disappointed, because this film is anything but a gory rampage, although there are a couple of extreme gory sequences that remind the viewer of his previous films.

Concerning the plot and the dubbing, "Riverplay" undoubtedly is superior to Ittenbach's earlier films, and the film itself is a homage to John Boorman's "Deliverance" and similar films, although it's not a revenge movie as such. There are some cool twists and psychologically highly interesting characters, and the story keeps on going during the entire running time: it never gets stuck or becomes tedious (frequently a problem in "amateur" productions when they try to tell a story). The only problem is that the actors are not very good (which is also a recurring problem with "amateur" productions), and because the script offers such psychologically interesting dialogues and riveting story development, the lack of convincing acting only becomes more obvious.

All in all, "Riverplay" is a highly entertaining and mind catching little movie that could have been a sleeper if it had got better production value and more professional actors. Rating: 6 out of 10.

Ittenbach is actually the most known of the few german splatter directors. I liked this movie very much. It is not as campy as his earlier ones, and is based on a really good storyline. Though, as mentioned in the other comment, Ittenbach lacked to have really good actors and technique for it - otherwise it would be surely a genre-classic.

The story: six people gather accidentally on a hut deep in the woods. Nob and his wife Susan are not on good terms and it is likely that they will soon divorce. A canoe trip shall save her . On the river they meet soon Daniel und Walter, two friend, who have been to jail together. In the woods they meet Phil and Linda. They are an evil couple, who kill wanderers and eat them.

Soon a corpse of one of their victims is found. None of the three couples knows whom to trust, and Phil and Linda slowly try to reach their goal - to kill the four other ones... Compared to other Ittenbach movies, this one is not very gory, just in the final, which is in some ways great. I like the "serious" Ittenbach more than the "campy". If he goes on like this - which is not very probable, though - he could be a big name in the horror business, as Jörg Buttgereit already is.