What is in the water in 2026 for the slasher horror subgenre? Between Avalon Fast flirting and subverting expectations in Camp, and Jane Schoenbrun's deep dive into eros and thanatos (and the pleasure principle) in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, now comes the experimental formula remixing slash reaffirming of River.
The prologue here separates the violence of audio and image in a way that is slickly disorienting, and feels as fresh as blasting Bach out of the stereo of a muscle car; not your typical needle drop for a wildness survival horror. The film settles into a slow, and long character-driven start with three estranged siblings meeting at their neglectful, now deceased, father’s cottage to scatter his ashes. There is a spectacular transition from them driving the boat on the road, to the moving water of the river that is one of several arresting images that go a fair way of establishing that the audience is in good hands from debut director Joshua Giuliano.
The first act takes its time to understand establish the personalities of tomboy Carly (Jane Levy, Evil Dead), princess Lucy (Jessica Rothe, Happy Death Day) and traumatized (but surprisingly funny) Drew (Max Mattern). They bicker on the boat, offering wildly different eulogies for their dad, and generally push each others buttons. When the film changes gears into full blown survival mode, the groundwork has been laid, even if River is not terribly interested in going much further with its character threads or anything insightful about domestic redemption arcs.
Instead, it favours a propulsive, lean, and often brutal mentality that aims to both play with, and somewhat adhere to, the tropes of the genre, in ways that are both unexpected and occasionally baffling. Perhaps tipping his hand (or perhaps not), a character remarks, at one point early on to her siblings, that the river seems to exist outside of space and time. Movie logic dominates from this point forward, with chills and kills that are a novel mix of gory indulgence and sly restraint.
River yields nightmare logic of a slightly different flavour from your typical slasher or survival beats, as a pair of faceless swimmers terrorize the trio, and bring out the best in them in a trial by fire, after we spend the first act witnessing the worse. This makes the film a kind of crowdpleaser in that regard, and perhaps invite some forgiveness at some of the more wobbly bits as it moves from A to C and an inevitable sequel tease.
Technically, the film is astounding on what is undoubtedly a small budget, making expert use of the geography of its limited locations (and for that matter, characters), both on the water and off, and establishing some iconography of its killers. It will keep you guessing, as the film plays to its strength of offering indelible images that would work outside the horror space, even as they add to the genre. It will be difficult to forget the image of a figure hanging from a bridge on fire, with flowerlets of flame dropping into the water below. Bravo for that.
The film enjoys its world premiere at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival.