Sweet river

We still remember the film Children of the Corn (1984) directed by Fritz Kiersch and based on a short story by Stephen King. In it, a young couple was trapped in a remote town where a dangerous religious cult of children believed that anyone over the age of 18 should be killed. The female lead role was played by actress Linda Hamilton (Terminator 1&2 (1984,1991) Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)...). This film was certainly not a classic of its kind but had managed to achieve a certain public success and had been followed by numerous sequels.

Sweet river seems to want to surf on the success of this film to offer us a story also featuring a young woman coming to a lost corner of the United States and murderous children (here, ghosts seeking revenge).

Sweet River thus stages Hannah (Lisa Kay)'s quest to find the body of her son who disappeared several years ago. Her investigations in Billins threaten to reveal the dark secret of this town. She will find herself facing not only the inhabitants of this town but also vindictive ghosts. The story, even though it is not fundamentally new, manages to cope with limited means and knows how to take advantage of natural resources to deliver a gripping and rather skillfully crafted horrific thriller.

While most recent horror movies seem to play an obvious overbid to hide the mediocrity of some scenarios, Sweet river is meant to be simple by form but works rather well with a few perfectly brought jump scare. However, it would have been necessary to develop the plot a bit more and especially to edit the shortest and therefore more efficient as the plot is so simplistic.

Sweet river
Directed by Justin McMillan
Produced by Ashley McLeod
Written by Marc Furmie, Eddie Baroo
Starring Lisa Kay, Martin Sacks, Genevive Lemon, Rob Carlton, Sam Parsonson, Bryan Probets, Jeremy Waters, Jack Ellis, Chris Haywood
Music by Piers Burbrook de Vere
Cinematography: Tim Tregoning
Edited by Simon Njoo
Running time: 102 minutes

Seen on January 28, 2021 (Gerardmer Festival)