Across the River (2013) User Reviews

an atmospheric horror movie that isn't for the casual fan!

[SpannersGerm669 · 6/10 · 28 September 2014]

Across the River isn't for everybody. Its a very slow burning, atmospheric ghost tale that doesn't spell everything out for you.

An ecologist becomes lost after studying animals in the woodlands located at the border between Italy and Slovenia. He seeks refuge in what he believes to be an abandoned village, but he soon finds out that the village has a history, and he is in grave danger.

Atmospherically, this movie is fantastic. Its very slow burn allows it to slowly creep up on you, with the scenery and score, both beautiful and haunting.

My biggest problem with the film is that it seemed to be filling in time at some stages. There were periods where it felt like it wasn't going anywhere and clips of spooky housing and wilderness began to become a little repetitive. Fortunately though ,it never lost my interest.

So to sum it all up. If you are a casual horror film with no interest in attention to details, you will hate Across the River. There are no jump scares or excessive gore/kills. But if you appreciate horror that is deeply psychological, then Across the River is definitely worth a look.

Very happy to have it in my collection!

an "ok" low budget production, but with surprisingly good acting

[gina-paul-skinner · 5/10 · 10 October 2014]

*** Contains spoilers *** First of all, viewers need to be reminded of the fact that this is a low budget production. The film relies largely on its spooky atmosphere, created by the abundant use of shadows (about 80% of the movie was filmed during the night hours or during twilight) and the ever popular eerie noise background.

There is a thin storyline, with no real beginning, and no real ending. The few characters in the film are unrelated to each other. The main focus is on a nameless ethologist (convincingly portrayed by Marco Marchese) researching the local wildlife in the densely wooded area around the Italian/Slovenian border. He's working alone, sleeping in a cabin and occasionally in his camper van. We, the viewers, know of his intentions because he very conveniently uses a Dictaphone, into which he speaks.

He ends up in this remote, dilapidated abandoned village. About half of the film, he spends in this village searching through the ruins. Continuous torrential rainfall, flooding the river banks, means he is trapped and cut off from the only access road.

So he stumbles around the village, mostly in the dark for whatever reason, his only light source first a small flashlight and, when that gives out, an old oil lamp that he finds.

The movie cuts to an old couple, Slovenians, who hear on the radio about the ethologist's disappearance in the area. The old man ends up telling his wife about the abandoned village, in which, it turns out, he had lived as a child. It is thanks to him, that us viewers know what's going on. He talks about these twin girls who, when he lived there, were being kept locked away because apparently they were very dangerous.

Cutting back to the poor ethologist, scared out of his wits, soon the presence of the ghost sisters becomes apparent for they start taunting him.

The film ends as one would expect. There are no real surprises. It's not a bad film, but not a fantastic film, either. It's somewhere in the middle.

It's best to watch this film in complete darkness for an added fright effect - for, if watched alone and in the dark, everything else (weak story, slow pace) aside, the eerie atmosphere of this film will be enough to occasionally make you jump.

Should have been better.

[Patient444 · 5/10 · 29 November 2015]

I do wonder this: are such productions the way they are because they tried a new approach, a different way of making a movie or is it simply cause of the budget?

Is it atmospheric? Yes. Is it dark? Yes. Is it confusing, intriguing and manages to keep your interest up all the way? Yes, yes, yes. Is it a horror? Well, now this is a so-so. Why? Because it takes far too long to show almost nothing, nothing new, as the direction supposedly goes. It is the mother of all clichés here, and if you watch it, you'll understand. A story as old as Night of the living Dead. So, if they want to show me something different, by all means, but if they're just going to go around the path and take longer to get to the same destination, then I'm not happy about it.

Across the river, I've seen better and plenty!

Cheers!

90 minutes of my life that I'll never get back.

[dutch-749-752778 · 1/10 · 24 November 2019]

Slow. Boring. Lacking substance, kinda like my review.

Stylish foreign horror

[epiceffectss · 7/10 · 21 December 2014]

Good horror film , it's Italian , very little dialogue as it mainly features one guy alone throughout the film . It's cheap but it's stylish and well filmed . Something that American and uk low budget horror films could use as a benchmark. The quality of the film is top notch as far as filming is concerned , looks very Erie and sinister , edgy. I won't spoil the story here as if your going to watch it just do it. The plot is thin as another reviewer pointed out but it's stylish and it keeps you there. Soundtrack is OK . It's not a must see film in my opinion but if you want to check a slow moving quality horror then it's a good watch. I'm going to say seven out of ten.

Terrible ghost story

[george.schmidt · 1/10 · 7 November 2013]

ACROSS THE RIVER (2013) * Terrible ghost story horror from Italian director Lorenzo Bianchini about an isolated experimental researcher (Marco Marchese) who slowly realizes he is not totally alone in the rustic woodlands where the spectres of two long-dead sisters are haunting the locals. Like watching paint-dry isn't even worth a venture to guess what happens by its forever end. Incoherent from the get-go and the fact that there is practically no interaction with any other characters - except for an elderly man who too has been haunted by the sisters. The only reason the film gets a * is the fact the ghosts are spooky and the night-vision cinematography is perfect in capturing an otherworldly view.

Not bad, but...

[tmccull52 · 6/10 · 13 November 2019]

I liked this movie more than I thought that I might. As someone who has ventured off on his own, upon occasion, it wasn't too difficult to put myself in the protagonist's shoes. I have a small van, a Ford Transit Connect, that I have converted into an "adventure mobile", and I used to visit ghost town in the area that I live in. I was usually by myself, and carried what I needed for said visits. Unlike the ethomologist in this movie, I did not run afoul of any cursed, malevolent spirits.

The atmosphere of the film was excellent, even if the pacing was a bit slow. It put me in mind of "The Blair Witch", in some aspects. One key difference between the two films was that the unfortunate victims in "The Blair Witch" kept getting lost, despite having had map and compass. There was no seeming way out of the woods for them, however desperately that they tried.

The protagonist is this film found his way back to the river that he'd crossed along his way to the abandoned village that he finds. He was an experienced outdoorsman; why didn't he hike back out the same way that he'd gone in? He had found sufficient resources with which to sustain himself while being stranded in the village. He still had his firearm, with a night vision camera mounted to it. He couldn't have scrounged up sufficient supplies to trek it on out of the village? If I was as afraid as he had become, I would have definitely hoofed it out of that place, and would have taken my chances crossing the river.

Still, this was a decent effort, if a somewhat slow burn. If you like "Blair Witch" horror-in-isolation movies where the threat is more implied than actually seen, you may want to give this movie a try. It definitely isn't for everyone, but I ended up somewhat liking it, having gone in with no expectations.

Incredibly Boring

[brucecsnow · 1/10 · 17 June 2018]

* No Spoilers Ahead Because There's Almost No Plot Or Action *

One reviewer mentioned this but still gave it eight stars. Open scenes show a scientist reviewing footage of wildlife cameras he placed..The movie takes place in some lost forest in Europe I guess. A few minutes later he finds a large boar with large jaw marks. Spooky music starts playing. Then two mysterious young girls make a spooky appearance. Then he gets his RV stolen. Plus he gets rained on a lot. About an hour of this movies shows the scientist being rained on while he's trying to keep warm in the old stone homes in the backwoods. Then some people start searching for him. They might have found him or not. The huge bite marks on the boar was never explained.

If "that's 90 minutes of my life I'll never get back" was in the dictionary, this movie would be pictured.

Very Nice

[arfdawg-1 · 8/10 · 5 October 2014]

The Plot.

The story revolves around an ethologist working in the remote woods, trapping animals and mounting cameras on them so that he can monitor their behavior remotely.

The resulting recordings lead him to a remote village, the site of an ancient curse, where he is trapped due to heavy rain fall raising the level of the river and flooding out the only access...

I saw this in Italian with no subtitles and I do not speak Italian. For the most part, there was no need in that there is little dialog. And the dialog that is there doesn't impede your understanding of the movie if you don't understand it.

I thought the movie was pretty decent, if a bit slow. It's atmospheric in nature and takes it's time.

I don't agree with the clown who gave this one star. He must not like intelligent movies.

The biggest pitfall of this film is that it really is too slow. That's too bad because it could have been great.

The guy, lone in this rinky dink "village" sure is brave. I'd have high tailed it out of there with the first sign of weirdness and that came before the rains!

As it stands, I'm giving it an 8 because I liked the concept as well as the execution. And it was a bit unique. It's hard to pull off a story with virtually one character and no dialog. I think they did it.

Points off because as I say earlier, it's a bit too slow.

Subtle and surprisingly moody ghost story.

[HumanoidOfFlesh · 8/10 · 3 November 2014]

The action of "Across the River" takes place in the deep dark woods on the border of Italy and Slovakia.Ethologist Marco Contrada(Marco Marchese)conducts his regular wildlife survey via trapping wild animals and putting cameras on them.He wants to research and analyze their nocturnal activity.But it seems that mysterious presence is butchering foxes and wild pigs in the woods.The answer lies in the cursed ruins of a deserted village where two ghostly female figures lurk."Across the River" has very little plot.The main character is constantly alone in the wilderness.The action is slow and the film lacks of dialogue and character development.Still there are several genuinely eerie and atmospheric moments and the location sets are fantastic.The decayed village is insanely creepy and the feeling of isolation is strikingly well-crafted.Also the soundtrack by Stefano Sciascia is wonderfully evocative and moody.Very unconventional horror movie,but not for everyone.8 forest streams out of 10.

Not your typical Supernatural Movie.

[sgdptech · 10/10 · 1 April 2017]

This movie sent me for a loop, here I was expecting a crummy independent mystery film, oh boy..I couldn't have been more mistaken. The movie involves a basically mundane Animal Researcher capturing woodland creatures and fitting them with satellite tracking infrared cameras, and for the first 20 minutes or so I kept getting the urge to scrap it and go to the next film. Well, I'll tell you I'm awfully glad that I stuck it out to the end, the really good part doesn't start until he crosses the river and drives to an abandoned village at the end of the road, then........................................Sorry, I have to stop here or I'll ruin your own scary experience. Totally mind numbing!

well, there have been plenty of summaries

[klausthomasrupp-85281 · 9/10 · 31 March 2015]

It's kind of funny to see how many people are a bit confused because the movie does not have the usual arc of tension (can I say so?) and it has a different build-up than most other, even independent, movies. The 1-star-Michael-Bay-Fan from NJ perhaps fails to recognize talent or to distinguish talent from pumping money into a movie to compensate lack of talent. This movie is great IF you love suspense movies and real horror, not pseudo-horror caused by tons of gore. As a matter of fact, this movie does without ANY cheap effect. Being hooked by this movie (the blu-ray contains a very cool Irish short named "Foxes" as well) and the brilliant soundtrack I got myself the DVD for Custodes Bestiae, a 2004 self-produced movie by the same director. That one had a budget of about €30,000 and it's absolutely great. Go for it!

Very enjoyable

[nelsonramatos · 8/10 · 7 November 2020]

I've just watched this movie again, and although I didn't like as much as the first time, I still liked a lot. It's like some other reviewers said, it's a very atmospheric flick, and I'm quite bias towards this movie, since the settings remind me a lot of my grandparents village, so I actually connect with the surroundings and that most definitely helped me a lot to be so deep in the movie. However, I think the first time I saw this movie it was a different and better cut, but I can't be sure since it was so many years ago. Either way it's a very good horror movie and better than most of what's out there, not that conventional and slow paced, but very good. If you are a horror fan, you should definitely give it a try. Best regards

Well, I liked it

[boattop · 8/10 · 4 June 2020]

Yes, it was slow. We,too, were ready to scrap it. We thought it would be another "found video" crap. It was good, yes, there are subtitles but sooo little dialogue which was fine. Be patient, the music is great, the scenery too. This no Avatar or Transformers nonsense....this is a thinking movie. Found it on HOOPLA, which is associated with most North American libraries, Free!