Adrift in Memory and Murder: "ROW" Navigates the Dark Waters of Survival Horror - Review

Bella Dayne fights through trauma and tides in the festival survival thriller ROW

HMU RATING: ★★★☆☆

Festival Watch Status: Raindance Premiere – Worth a Look

Watch If You Like: The Vanishing, The Lighthouse, Resurrection, or any slow-burn survival tale with unreliable narrators and emotional unease.

— Reviewed by Travis Brown | Horror Movies Uncut

In a world increasingly shaped by real-life disasters, it’s no surprise that survival horror is cresting as one of the most resonant subgenres in modern filmmaking. And with ROW, filmmaker Matt Losasso throws his oar into those murky waters, delivering a grim, slow-burning psychological thriller that places a fractured woman, a shattered past, and an unforgiving sea at its center.

Premiering at this year’s Raindance Film Festival—where it’s already snagged a handful of award nominations—ROW stars Bella Dayne (Humans) as Megan, the lone survivor of a transatlantic rowing expedition gone horribly wrong. She’s discovered half-dead and memory-wiped in a bloodstained boat off the coast of Hoy, a remote Scottish isle. From there, the film dives into a foggy narrative of pieced-together trauma and mounting paranoia.

The setup is eerily familiar, reminiscent of films like Open Water or The Shallows—but in ROW, it’s not the ocean that’s trying to kill you. It’s the people. Or worse, your own mind. Dayne anchors the story with a haunted performance, slowly pulling back layers of Megan’s psyche as scattered memories of her vanished crewmates, desperate decisions, and quiet betrayals bubble to the surface. Her flashbacks, fragmented and unreliable, make you question not only what happened—but whether she’s telling the truth about any of it.

Supporting turns from Sophie Skelton (Outlander), Tam Dean-Burn, and Nick Skaugen ground the mystery in a cold, clipped realism. Meanwhile, the visuals do a lot of the heavy lifting: Hoy’s rugged cliffs and grey skies are gorgeously ominous, adding emotional weight to every wide shot and wave crash. Losasso and DP Zoran Veljkovic

know how to make isolation look dangerous—and that aesthetic is a standout element throughout the film.

Still, ROW isn’t without flaws. Clocking in a bit too long, its pacing drags in the second act, and some of the more impactful reveals land with a whimper rather than a wallop. This isn’t a story about a shark or a sea creature. It’s about the monster we find in ourselves when the storm comes—and for that theme to truly hit, the film needed a slightly sharper blade.

Final Verdict:

ROW is a moody, beautifully shot survival horror story that floats more than it sinks. It doesn’t break new ground narratively, but its atmosphere, dread, and lead performance from Bella Dayne give it enough gravity to keep it afloat. A solid 3 out of 5 from us at Horror Movies Uncut.

ROW will have its World Premiere at Raindance Film Festival on 21st June

Director: Matt Losasso

Cast: Bella Dayne, Nick Skaugen, Sophie Skelton, Akshey Khanna, Tam Dean-Burn and Mark Strepan