River Review | Fantastic Fest 2026
FANTASTIC FEST 2026 REVIEW
‘River’ Review: Jane Levy and Jessica Rothe Lead an Intelligent, Brutal Backwoods Slasher
Calling any movie the best slasher of the year before the year is over is setting an incredibly high bar.
That hasn’t stopped River from developing that kind of reputation as it has moved through the festival circuit. Joshua Giuliano’s slasher arrived at Fantastic Fest 2026 with considerable buzz already surrounding it, and after finally seeing the film, it’s easy to understand where that enthusiasm is coming from.
I’m still hesitant to crown anything the year’s best this early, but River absolutely has the potential to get there. More importantly, it could eventually be remembered as one of the stronger slashers of the past decade.
Starring Jane Levy, Jessica Rothe and Max Mattern, River builds its horror around a family whose history is inseparable from their father and his life on the water. His boat and the river aren’t simply locations. They are part of the family’s identity and, ultimately, part of what brings the siblings back together.
Growing up in Missouri with the Lake of the Ozarks nearby, this particular kind of character and environment immediately felt recognizable. There are people whose entire lives become intertwined with the water, boats, cheap beer and the small communities surrounding them.
River understands that world well enough that its characters don’t immediately feel like pieces being positioned for a slasher.
They feel like a family.
Rothe plays Carla, the older sister who has become increasingly disconnected from the others. Levy’s character Lucy remained closer, assuming more of a caretaker role after their mother’s death and Carla’s departure. Their younger brother Drew (Mattern) carries his own history, including a traumatic childhood experience involving their father that continues to affect him years later.
Those histories matter once the siblings are forced together again.
Some of the strongest early moments belong to Levy and Rothe simply interacting. There are exchanges where the tension feels less like scripted exposition and more like watching two sisters reopen arguments they’ve probably been having in different forms for years.
There is resentment. There is affection. There is guilt.
Most importantly, there is history.
That’s what gives River a stronger foundation than simply putting several recognizable actors in the woods and waiting for someone with bad intentions to arrive.
The siblings aren’t there looking for trouble. They’re attempting to do something sentimental, deal with their father’s connection to the river and move into another chapter of their lives.
Instead, the trip forces them together in ways none of them anticipated.
Horror has always understood the deceptive beauty of isolated landscapes.
Deliverance helped cement that anxiety for American audiences decades ago. A river surrounded by trees can look peaceful enough to belong on a postcard while simultaneously placing someone miles away from the people and institutions they depend on when something goes wrong.
River taps directly into that fear.
Giuliano takes an incredibly simple environment and gradually converts it into nightmare fuel. The water, woods and isolation don’t require elaborate mythology to become threatening. The movie understands that removing people from familiar surroundings can be enough.
Then the violence starts.
This is where River earns much of the reputation preceding it.
The kills are vicious, but more importantly, they’re creative. There is intention behind the brutality rather than simply an attempt to increase the body count. Giuliano knows audiences coming into a modern slasher have seen decades of inventive murder, so simply putting another threat in front of the camera isn’t enough.
The execution has to matter.
Here, it does.
There are moments when River becomes nasty enough to generate exactly the kind of excitement genre audiences want from this type of movie. It isn’t afraid of its own violence, and it doesn’t spend the entire runtime teasing audiences with the possibility that something brutal might happen eventually.
When the movie decides to hurt someone, it commits.
But calling River effective simply because of its kills would undersell what Giuliano has accomplished.
This is an intelligent slasher.
The filmmaking is sharp, the movie is beautifully shot and, most importantly, the decisions surrounding its characters, environment and violence feel deliberate. There is an understanding of the mechanics of the genre without the movie constantly trying to announce how clever it is.
That confidence extends beyond the kills.
There appears to be a larger story surrounding what happens in River, with enough left beneath the surface to suggest Giuliano could return to this world and expand what has been introduced.
I’d welcome that.
At the same time, River doesn’t feel dependent on a sequel to justify itself. If this remains a standalone film, there is enough personality, brutality and memorable imagery here for it to develop a reputation on its own.
Not every new slasher needs to immediately become a cinematic universe. Sometimes the smartest thing a filmmaker can do is deliver one great movie and allow audiences to decide whether they want more.
River makes a convincing argument for more.
Levy and Rothe are exactly as dependable as expected, and Maten holds his own within a family dynamic that asks the three performers to establish years of emotional baggage without slowing down the movie to explain every piece of it.
Giuliano’s greater accomplishment is making that drama relevant once the survival elements take over.
This isn’t simply a collection of people who need to stay alive. These are siblings with unresolved problems suddenly placed in circumstances where surviving requires them to function like a family again.
There are a few moments where the logic asks for some generosity from the audience. Certain decisions or developments could stand to feel a little more believable.
But the movie executes its larger ideas so effectively that those issues never seriously derail it.
And that brings everything back to simplicity.
River doesn’t need to reinvent the slasher. Its creativity comes from understanding what already makes this kind of movie work and executing those fundamentals extremely well.
Give us characters worth following.
Put them somewhere beautiful and dangerous.
Make the threat convincing.
And when it’s time for the kills, make them count.
Giuliano accomplishes all four.
Saturday turned into an exceptionally strong night at Fantastic Fest, and River was a major reason why. This also feels like one of the festival titles with genuine crossover potential. Dedicated genre audiences should embrace it, but the straightforward premise, recognizable family dynamics and polished execution could allow it to reach mainstream viewers and more casual horror fans as well.
That’s where the early “slasher of the year” conversation starts making considerably more sense.
Whether River ultimately earns that distinction will have to wait until the rest of 2026 has played out. But it unquestionably has the potential, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re still discussing it years from now as one of the more memorable slashers of this era.
It’s vicious without being empty, beautifully shot without sacrificing momentum and smart without overcomplicating a fundamentally simple premise.
That’s what impressed me most.
River isn’t trying to prove how complicated a slasher can become.
It demonstrates how good one can be when nearly everything is executed correctly.
4 out of 5
Reviewed as part of Horror Movies Uncut's Fantastic Fest 2026 coverage in Austin, Texas.
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