Director: Charlie Steeds
Year: 2018
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: Mutant River
Genre: Creature Feature
Plot:
Taking a special trip together, a group of friends head on a special scenic river barge trip through the countryside so they can spend some time together, but when they encroach the territory of a group of fish-people creatures must band together to fight off the ravenous creatures and get away alive.
Review:
This was a fairly fun low-budget creature feature. Among the brighter aspects of this one is the rather impressive starting half where the general build-up to the creatures comes off quite well. Using the early exploits of the barge trip to do the requisite character-building and personal dynamics within the group so we get a sense of the various characters and personalities featured within, this starts the film rather nicely with the different motivations for going on the trip and the different styles they all operate on while keeping just enough hints that there’s something in the woods along the way. As the group continues on and their experiences take them deeper into the woods as a result, the way they come off here with the varied encounters that take place sets up everything incredibly well.
That serves the film incredibly well when the creatures finally appear and start going after the group. While the initial encounters in the woods are presented as solid ambush scenarios where they appear on unsuspecting loners, the main attack on the barge here is an exceptionally accomplished sequence that comes off phenomenally. With the group of intruders also involved when the fish creatures arrive, there’s plenty of carnage on display as the brawling, weaponry being used to defend themselves, high-quality gore, and some surprising death orders with how they get knocked off, this frenetic series of action sets this in motion incredibly well as a standout sequence leading into the strong finale. The final battles with the creatures are incredibly fun and manage to get quite a lot to like in the brutality and choreography as they come together with the stellar creature designs for some generally exciting times here giving the film quite a lot to enjoy about it.
There aren’t too many flaws to be had with this one. The biggest issue here is the somewhat overlong finale that has several distinct possible endings but doesn’t know which one to actually use. This one tacks on several endings involving the capture of the lone survivor and her treatment during the finale where it takes on her continued chances at escape only to keep getting interfered with so it takes a while to get everything sorted out perfectly. Taking out one or two of these features and settling on one of the finishes would’ve served this one so well in how it finished as it keeps trying for twist after twist and falling short due to including so many unnecessary tactics. As well, the other slight drawback here comes from the behavior of the local couple the group meets up with as it’s unnaturally petty and realistic for them to continue on the way they are targeting the group simply to add more bodies to the mix which isn’t thankfully detrimental but does crop up here.
Overview: ****/5
A wholly exciting creature feature effort, there’s quite a lot to like about this one as its slew of positives and not-that-detrimental flaws make for a really fun time throughout here. Those who appreciate this particular style of creature feature, enjoy indie fare in general, or are fans of the creative crew will have quite a lot to like here while only those turned off by the style won’t have much to enjoy.
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