River of Darkness

...the reason being that it was made at all. If your a wrestling fan looking for the novelty of seeing Kurt Angle, Sid Vicious and Kevin Nash outside of the ring then please realise....its not worth it. Nash and Sid are unrecognisable and rarely out of the darkness and Kurts acting is so appalling you will turn away and cringe so you wont see him much either.

In fact if you doubt that fact check out the other movies starring Kurt. He's an unbelievable athelete and in my opinion the greatest all rounder in the history of wrestling but outside the the ring he falls apart and cannot be taken seriously.

The acting is beyond awful, the special effects are preschool and the storyline is recycled. There is nothing good to say about this film and I hope all involved are ashamed of themselves.

I love movies of all genres, of any age, regardless of how good or bad they are. But River of Darkness doesn't deliver on any level. So far there have been some gems such as Rango, some mediocre efforts like Sanctum and some poorly conceived movies such as Battle:Los Angeles and Justin Bieber:Never Say Never. But River of Darkness is the only movie so far this year that I downright despise, it is that bad!

River of Darkness is a good example of a movie that is all style, no substance. Saying that does nothing in the film's favour, because production-values wise this film is shoddy. The scenery and sets have an appropriately Gothic look to them, but they are completely ruined by the cinematography and editing which makes the movie look as though it has been edited on a bacon slicer and the lighting which is incredibly dull.

River of Darkness fails epically in the story and writing as well. The story did have a nice arc to it on paper, but the execution was so derivative and poor one couldn't help thinking River of Darkness offers nothing new to the genre. Not one scene is believable in any way, the murders are all gore no heart no matter how marginally impressive the gore is. But that is nothing compared to the dialogue, I have heard some bad dialogue in many movies but River of Dakrness has some of the worst dialogue I have ever heard in my entire life. It is so cheesy and forced, and so clichéd and melodramatic I could not take it seriously at all.

The film's direction is incompetent. In fact the direction is so sloppy that the film could have easily had no direction whatsoever. The characters I felt nothing for whatsoever, they are written terribly and you learn next to nothing about them. The pace is languid so much so nothing comes to life. None of the actors are genuine or brings heart to their characters either.

Overall, a shoddy mess and to be avoided. 0/10 Bethany Cox

How do you stop ghosts from killing? After a series a gruesome murders strikes a small river town Sheriff Logan (Angle) notices a similarity. After his investigation points to three brothers that are dead things start to get weird. For starters the main stars of the movie are three wrestlers : Kurt Angle, Kevin Nash and Psycho Sid Vicious. When these are you main stars you really can't expect a lot from the movie. The plot, acting and apparent budget reminded me of a "Scy Fy" channel original movie...only worse. The acting is really, really bad. The movie itself could have been worse I guess, but the acting was so bad it's distracting. Overall this was better then I expected, but the acting was SO BAD it's hard to overlook. Movie is a C-, acting is F. When taking both into account, I say D+.

Would I watch again? - No way

I had low expectations going into watching this film as I saw it only to see how the professional wrestlers (Kurt Angle, Kevin Nash, Sid Vicious) did on the screen. I hoped for at least mildly entertaining in that bad horror movie way since the slasher/horror genre is just about the hardest to make truly bad. I was soon proved wrong as this is one of the worst movies I have EVER seen.

Sure enough, all three wrestlers were bad. Kurt Angle seemed to wear the same facial expression throughout the movie. Either he or the director thought it was some sort of deep thought look but I found it to be more of a "why am I here? what am I doing?" look. Nash and Vicious were even worse as they played zombie killers who basically had to emulate Jason and failed miserably. They looked more like animatronic monsters from a failed Disney ride than professional wrestlers who have plenty of experience with fake violence.

To be honest though, I can't blame the wrestlers for their bad acting as everyone else in the move was equally bad. Given the overall crappiness of the movie, I have to place most of the blame on writer/director Bruce Koehler. The plot is the typical slasher/horror plot of three people wrongfully killed by a lynch mob who come back 30 years later as zombies to get their revenge. Not the most original story but one that has worked for others into at least a semi- entertaining movie. Sadly, Bruce's script has the worst dialogue, horrible pacing, and too many plot problems. Seriously, if that is how he thinks police investigate a serial killer then thank God he isn't involved in law enforcement or no criminal would ever get caught. Dear Bruce, please watch a few episodes of CSI and Law & Order next time you want to write about cops.

Bruce can add horrible directing to his horrible writing credit as it appears he was happy with the first take on every scene. The movie also featured some of the worst production values I've ever scene in all their high def glory. The whole movie looked like it was shot under far too bright fluorescent lights. The slasher kill scenes were unimaginative and featured some of the worst, most obviously fake blood ever scene in a slasher flick. I suspect that much of the 3 million plus reported budget went to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain of the cast and crew because it sure didn't go into the special effects or stunts.

Bottom line: if you are a wrestling fan wanting to see your heroes in a movie, skip this one and go re-watch a Steve Austin, John Cena, or Rock film; they aren't great but at least they aren't awful either. If you aren't a wrestling fan you should just run away at the mere mention of the movie.

Dreadful acting throughout weigh down this moderately enjoyable slasher/ghost DTV. Undead victims of a smalltown lynching come back from the dead to take their revenge on the hicks responsible for their murder.

Good production values and regular slashings help salvage this very uninspired offering. This was meant to cash in on wrestling fans, and to be honest, I've seen much worse movies, but God, the acting. And the lead is not entirely responsible, everybody here does an absolutely terrible job of conveying the simplest emotions. A woman who just lost her child to the undead is particularly amateurish, and one paranormal researcher looks ready for Skinemax. One of the zombies is a dead ringer for 'Dog' Chapman. If you're not regarding, this can entertain you for 90 minutes.