Blood River

As I hadn't seen Broken or The Devil's Chair, I was able to watch Blood River without any preconceptions about what to expect from an Adam Mason film. The film comes with several boasts about the awards it picked up on the festival circuit but I have learned through experience to take these with a pinch of salt as, terrific though they are, festival judges and audiences can sometimes be not entirely discriminating

It seems, from the commentary, that this is a very different style of film to Mason's previous two and is less of a gore-soaked outright horror film and its, intentionally so, more of a character driven thriller.

After a scene in a motel which culminates with a woman in a bloodsoaked bathtub harming herself with a razor blade whilst a strange man looks on, the film shifts to a new location: a car driving through the Nevada desert. Newlyweds Clark and Summer are happily travelling to see their relatives and announce Summer's pregnancy when a blowout derails the car and sends them hurtling off the road to a shuddering halt. Coming to the vehicle, Summer realises that she has not suffered a miscarriage or any other obvious complications to her pregnancy and the only major damage is to Clark's face with a suspected broken nose. Try as he might, Clark can't get the vehicle moving as it is well and truly bogged down in the sand and the spare that he knew he packed (and was in the car in LA) has somehow gone missing. With no alternative, they must try and find shelter and water in order to survive the harsh environment.

Stumbling across a deserted ghost town called Blood River, they find there is almost nothing of any use with no people around and no spare tyres or water to be found. It appears that help comes in the unlikely form of Joseph, a man who manages to combine new-age thinking with a distinctly Southern and traditional outlook. He says that his car ran out of gas a few miles away in the opposite direction and he has also travelled to Blood River in the hope of finding something or someone of help.


Suggesting that he and Clark travelled to Clark's abandoned car and drain some of the gasoline out into the Jerry can he is carrying which can then be transferred it to Joseph's car so they can all get on their way and find a spare for Clark's car, this initially seems like a good idea but, the more time that Clark and Summer spent with Joseph, the more and more tense the atmosphere gets and the less secure Summer feels. Joseph initially seemed to be the answer to their prayers but, when his peculiar behaviour becomes increasingly threatening, including teaching Summer how to use a revolver, talking her through the logistics whilst pointing the loaded weapon at Clark, the more fractious the relationship between the two men becomes and the more insecure Summer feels.

There is a point in Blood River when you suddenly realise exactly who Joseph is or, at least, what he may be and it is at this point when the dynamic shift in the characterisation suddenly appears to make much more sense and becomes something altogether more dangerous and threatening. Tensions between the two escalate to the point where one of them ends up tied to a chair, beaten to a pulp and with a pair of wire cutters on one of his digits.


Adam Mason seems to be a deft hand at making an ordinary situation into something quite extraordinary with twists and turns along the way and eliciting quite astonishing performances by the three main actors. Although this was made in America with an American cast, it occasionally feels like one of the new wave of Australian horror films (such as Wolf Creek) and some of it even harks back to Kalifornia and The Hitcher in terms of its grittiness and incredible tension.

At the beginning of this review I said how I occasionally wonder how films pick up the awards they do at festivals but, in the case of Blood River, every single gong was thoroughly deserved, from the cinematography to Andrew Howard's awards for he is utterly mesmerising performance as Joseph. Blood River is a thoroughly compelling film which keeps you hooked until the credits roll.

The Disc

Extra Features
The commentary by Adam Mason and Simon Boyes is far from the greatest you'll ever come across and my attention wandered on several occasions to the point where I had this playing in the background whilst browsing the Internet. This had nothing to do with what they were saying as they were going through the film quite well, talking you through certain scenes and themes and what the shoot was like, but it doesn't help that neither of the writers are particularly gregarious.

The Making of Blood River is a 30 minute featurette which is a revealing and interesting watch comprising interviews with director Adam Mason and co-writer Simon Boyes, actors Ian Duncan and Tess Panzer together with a lot of B-roll footage and other interviews/behind the scenes footage from on the set. It is a very good watch that adds much to your understanding of the filming process and what members of the cast and crew went through in the desert.

The cast and crew interviews are only brief with a combined running time of a little over four minutes and is really an EPK piece, shedding little information on either the film or the actors, writers and other members of the crew. It is a reasonable watch but there's nothing special here.


The Picture
Cinematographer Stuart Brereton uses the anamorphic 2.35:1 format to terrific effect with both the wide vistas of the Nevada desert to close ups of the actors that, whilst not being as tightly framed as those in Sergio Leone's films, are still very tightly framed and he also uses slow zooms to good effect.

The transfer is extremely good and, on an upscaled DVD, the colours, contrast and the image detail are all remarkably good from the bleached desert scenes to the more intimate interior sequences with bright reds for the blood.

There are a couple of continuity errors, especially a glaring one with the amount of blood on Clark's face changing in between shots that this was apparently due to the length of the shoot with scenes lasting several days.


The Sound
You have the choice of Dolby Digital 5.1 surround or 2.0 stereo and, whilst this isn't the most effects laden film ever made, the 5.1 track has the edge when it comes to the ambient sounds such as wind blowing, doors creaking and objects blowing around. Both tracks deliver the dialogue extremely well so the exchanges between the characters carry the emotional punch they should.

The score, by Martin Grech, is extremely good evoking the Western nature of the film and underscoring the tension and more horrific sequences. I can't imagine the film working as well as it does without Grech's terrific composition.


Final Thoughts
Blood River is an extremely well crafted thriller that slowly draws you in, using the plight of the two main characters, to immerse you in something much darker and chilling than you were expecting. The performances by Iain Duncan, Tess Panzer and, especially, Andrew Howard are all utterly remarkable and extremely powerful, layered and compelling. The film is a very good watch and, although the commentary isn't the best, the other extra features more than compensate for that making this a very good DVD package of a remarkable and unforgettable film.