By Sometimes themes emerge at festivals. Sometimes dispatches like this are merely about what played on the same day, location, or, in this case, both. While Sian Heder’s “Being Heumann” took the coveted spot of Opening Night at the Princess of Wales Theatre, three remarkably different films unfolded across the evening, just down the street at the Royal Alexandra. A horror film, morbid musical, and period drama filled the theatre for three movies in a row, and yours truly was there to report back. Sadly, only one truly made the impact it intended.
What if Leatherface could swim? This was the thought that possibly inspired Joshua Giuliano’s grisly debut, “River,” an IFC effort that should find a blood-loving audience outside of the fest circuit. Two modern-day scream queens in Jane Levy (“Evil Dead”) and Jessica Rothe (“Happy Death Day”) give their fearless, physical all, but the real star here is the sound design and remarkable POV choices that announce newcomer Giuliano as a major genre talent to watch. A lot of the buzz on the ground at TIFF this year has been the question of what could be this fest’s “Obsession”—the Curry Barker film premiered here almost exactly a year ago. “River” is too brutal to make that kinda bank, but it’s the kind of movie that horror fans will truly jump for, something they’ll tell their friends they need to see to believe.
“River” opens with one of its most remarkable scenes. As the camera slowly pans over an empty car with an open trunk, we hear the action that took place before the images on the screen. A couple talks, flirts, listens to music, and then notices someone watching them from the woods. Giuliano and his excellent cinematographer pan across the car from different angles as the sounds of violence fill the soundtrack, sometimes ending on something disturbing like a bloody dent in the car or a human leg. It’s a neat trick, but it’s also an overture to a film that will play with sound and POV in ways that horror often never considers.
The real action of “River” starts with the introduction of tough Lucy (Levy), gentle brother Drew (Max Mattern), and their virtually estranged sister Carla (Rothe). She’s come home after the death of their father, but don’t worry, this isn’t overtly “grief horror,” even if the different relationships these three had with dad feel like they influence their choices as they try to survive the worst night of their lives.
The trio heads out early with dad’s ashes to spread them on his favorite spot on the local river, just past a rickety bridge. After the ceremony, they discover their gas line has ruptured and they’re stuck. Carla swims to shore, but they spot a bloody, shirtless, masked figure before she gets there. From that point on, “River” is relentless, a slasher movie that somehow turns the open space of a river into someplace claustrophobic. You have no gas in your boat, and the shore contains its version of Michael Myers. What the F do you do? It’s the starting point for an insanely brutal journey, one that puts Levy through the wringer nearly as much as “Evil Dead,” and reminds viewers how remarkably physical she can be as a performer.
Levy and Rothe are fantastic, but it’s Giuliano’s use of space and sound that truly elevate “River” above your standard slasher flick. One game he loves to rewardingly play is to have his characters see something before we do—we watch their terrified expression, taking a beat in our own minds to imagine what they could possibly be seeing, before the camera reveals it. It’s remarkably effective, and it’s joined by some of the best genre sound design in years. This movie crunches and breaks in a manner that’s reminiscent of the IFC hit “In a Violent Nature.” With only a few tweaks it could actually have been a sequel to that movie in how it also presents an unkillable force of unimaginable violence through sound design and brutality.
“River” won’t be for everyone—it’s insanely violent—but those who like a slasher pic that isn’t afraid to slash will find so much to admire in a film that doesn’t just play like homage to the ‘70s and ‘80s era when slashers ruled but updates the aesthetics and structure of those films for a new era. The synopsis at TIFF references John Carpenter, which often feels like the kind of standard that does a midnight movie no favors because so few can live up to it. The best compliment I can pay this one is that I think John will dig it.
Theo Rhys’ “Stuffed” should be like shooting roadkill in a barrel for this fan of not just musical theater but morbid humor. Clearly inspired by dark musicals like Sweeney Todd and even Little Shop of Horrors, “Stuffed” is a unique love story with a slowing pulse, a movie about how we all long to be remembered, to do something extraordinary with our ordinary lives. Sadly, despite its captivating concept and influences, along with two committed leads, it’s a misfire, a movie that feels incredibly long at nearly two hours, and one that wastes its performances on characters on a story that never gets under your skin.
Harry Melling continues to impress as Bernie, an ordinary guy who works at the local sandwich factory and cares for a dementia-addled mother. He has absolutely nothing going for him, and he’ll have even less when mom dies. The aesthetic of Bernie’s life reminded me of several Tim Burton characters: oddballs who do their little best to rebel against a world of conformity. What can Bernie possibly do to find his purpose?
When he answers an ad in the paper via a website, he crosses paths with Araminta (Jodie Comer), an equally quirky soul with a morbid hobby. Araminta is a taxidermist, someone who brings home roadkill, skins it, and adds it to her house of silent, unmoving animal friends. She’s waiting on the ultimate prize: A human being. She convinces Bernie that the most extraordinary thing he could do is to live forever in her stuffed menagerie. As they both plan his death, doing things like fake his suicide, they get closer, leading to the question of if, through planning the goodbye for something with nothing, they’ve given him something to live for: Love.
All of this is set to original songs, most of them of the Les Mis sung-dialogue type. Rhys stays close on his talented performers, which allows them to emote through song, but leads to a shockingly flat film visually. There are two numbers with significant choreography—one in the factory with Bernie and another alongside his burning car—and they are easily the standout sequences in the film. I kept wanting the camera to pull back on these performers, to give them a chance to act with their bodies as much as their faces and voices. It leads to a movie that’s remarkably repetitive visually, while also spinning its wheels narratively for way too long. “Stuffed” needed another twist, character, or arc to justify its length. As is, it just feels too hollow.
Finally, there’s the disappointing “The Housewife,” a film that sadly fails a test of a fictional take on a true story in that a documentary about this subject would almost certainly be significantly more interesting. The biggest problem is that director Ben Shirinian never finds a visual language for this period drama, shooting it like a TV movie instead of a theatrical feature. Naomi Watts does her absolute best, but she gets lost in a character that screenwriter Alyssa Hill never quite figured out. On the one hand, Hermine Braunsteiner would be difficult for anyone to unpack, but Shirinian is too content to keep her as a mystery for the first half of the film and an unspeakable villain for the second. The result is a movie that has no real identity, not in character, visual, or theme.
Watts plays Hermine Ryan, a New York woman in Queens in the ‘60s. She’s the pillar of her community, admired by her neighbors and loved by her husband Russell (Luke Evans). When the New York Times gets a tip from Elie Wiesenthal that the Ryan house is hiding a Nazi right in a New York City borough, writer Joseph Lelyveld (Tye Sheridan) goes to the house to talk to Russell, falling for Hermine’s warmth and excellent oatmeal raisin cookies. Of course, it’s barely a spoiler to reveal that it’s not Russell that the Times, and eventually the U.S. Government (personified here by an immigration officer played by Michael Imperioli), should worry about: It’s “The Mare,” a female guard at Majdanek given that name because of how much she liked to kick prisoners. She was the first Nazi extradited from the United States, accused of collaborating in the murders of over 1,000 people.
Watts is most interesting in scenes in which she allows The Mare to sneak through the façade that she has created as a perfect immigrant wife. At first, she totally denies the charges, but Watts allows us to peek at the evil barely concealed underneath. Despite how the screenplay forces her to play aspects of Hermine that feel tailored to the movie more than real, Watts makes choices that shine through.
There’s not much to praise about the rest. It’s one of those historical dramas that means well, one that thinks the power of the true story will do the heavy lifting, but questions like what this narrative means in 2026 or how to make it visually engaging were never asked. The idea that a child-murdering Nazi could become a beloved Queens housewife is a fascinating one. But a movie needs to be more than just an idea.
