Title: Rogue River
Directed by: Jourdan McClure
Starring: Michelle Page, Bill Moseley, Lucinda Jenney and Chris Coy
Running time: 81 minutes, Rated R
Mara drives to Rogue River after the death of her father to scatter his ashes. While grieving at the riverbank, a man named Jon greets her and offers to walk her to her car which has disappeared. In the middle of nowhere with no cell reception, she accepts a ride to civilization only to be taken hostage and subjected to horrors no sane person could imagine.
After watching the trailer, I felt really sick and extremely hesitant about watching this film. Some of the torture scenes are just flat-out nauseating. There’s a scene where we see a dead child in a closet, which was disturbing. In one scene, Mara gets boiling water poured down her throat, and then gets forced to have sex with a tortured man who has been fed Viagra in order to perform while unconscious. The ending was the biggest shocker, yet I was anticipating it as a possibility, so I got a good self-satisfied laugh because I sort of saw it coming.
The special features include cast & crew commentary, two featurettes and the theatrical trailer. I especially liked the commentary because the cast and crew sounded like they truly enjoyed the experience and had lots of insider information that went along with each scene, as well as some funny banter in the style of Mystery Science Theater.
Rogue River will find a small audience of people who love torture, gore and incest. You have to be in the right mindset in order to will yourself to watch this film, but in a way I’m kind of glad I decided to sit through it. It’s gruesome and effed-up, but I thought the writing was good, the cinematography good, special gore effects were decent, the acting was a little lacking, but all in all it’s surprisingly not bad.
Total Rating: B-
Reviewed by: JM Willis
