The River

S01E01-02: Oh well, I wasn’t expecting something so weak. The first episode of this series by Oren Peli (creator of Paranormal Activity), directed by Jaume Collet-Serra (director of the flawless Orphan), was utterly unconvincing and I’m afraid that there’s very little chance that it will get better, because if already in the first two episodes the characters feel so annoying, and the script so lobotomised, the project as a whole stinks. The found-footage format is pointless and unconvincing – in several scenes I couldn’t understand how and why they were filming with real cameras. It can be mildly scary at times – because walking with a torch and a camera through the corridors of a shipwreck or a jungle at night is already fundamentally scary and it can’t be ruined – but the rest is not worth talking about. A real fail so far, I think I’ll watch the remaining episodes just for the sake of it, if at all. 3/10 (08.02.2012)