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It’s pretty clear now that the “found footage” approach to low-budget cinema isn’t going away anytime soon. While the technique gained prominence in the horror genre, already this year, films like Chronicle and Project X have tried to spin it in new directions, with varying degrees of success. This year also saw producer Oren Peli, whose popular Paranormal Activity series helped revive the technique in theaters, bring it to television in ABC’s The River. Low ratings have already seen to the series’ cancellation, but with the first (and apparently only) season out now on DVD, it’s worth noting that this
experiment, while flawed, includes at least a few genuinely successful thrills.
Blending found-footage elements with its cousin, the “fake documentary,” The River revolves around the search for TV nature documentarian Emmet Cole (Bruce Greenwood), who seemingly disappeared and was presumed dead in the Amazon jungle. His estranged son, Lincoln (Joe Anderson), and wife, Tess (Leslie Hope), along with a film crew, a security expert, and a couple of locals, set sail down the Amazon River to retrace his ill-fated voyage in hopes of finding him alive. Along the way, they discover Emmet’s abandoned ship, The Magus, as well as videotapes of his last journey. They also encounter increasingly strange signs that the “magic” Emmet had been seeking is both more real and more dangerous than they thought.
As with most fake documentaries and found-footage films, the technique works best when it rubs up against the patently absurd or impossible, and that’s the area where The River works best. Images of Emmet holding a ball of fire during a native ceremony or swarms of brightly-colored (and clearly computer-generated) dragonflies stand out against the grainy video. The frequent encounters with the supernatural also get a boost in tension from the point-of-view shots and off-kilter framing. The River is a show that knows how these techniques work, and while it overplays them from time to time, it gets them right often enough to be enjoyable.
Unfortunately, this approach also leans heavily on dialogue to convey information and character, and that’s where the biggest problems arise. Most of the crew members are thinly sketched, functioning more as plot devices. There’s the surly and mysterious security agent, the arrogant cameraman, and the young girl who only speaks Spanish and seemingly knows every relevant local spook story and black magic ritual (cleverly dubbed “The Spanish Exposition” by The A.V. Club).
These wouldn’t be as much of a drawback if we really cared about the two leads, but neither Lincoln nor Tess comes off as particularly likeable. Anderson especially seems to be out of his depth, and despite a surprisingly strong turn in the finale, Lincoln seldom rises above irritating and sullen. By contrast, Greenwood owns the screen whenever we get a brief glimpse of the wayward Emmet Cole, and it’s a shame that the mechanics of the plot keep him out of the picture through much of the run.
Any show that relied this heavily on gimmick was bound to struggle on network television. One that did so only semi-successfully barely had a prayer. And yet there are things to like about The River, and there’s enough narrative closure in the finale to make its single-season run worth watching for those who can adjust their expectations.
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