Bullet Points: Damned River
The Zimbabwe tourist board is probably not using 1989’s Damned River in their promotional material. As the tag line stated “A dream vacation… becomes a grim nightmare”. And the tagline does not lie… but was watching Damned River a vacation or a nightmare?
- Float On: Damned River tells the tale of four 20 somethings that travel to Africa for a white water rafting adventure on the Zambezi River. There’s Carl the lawyer (John Terlesky, Deathstalker II), Carl’s girlfriend Anne (Lisa Aliff, Trained to Kill) who hasn’t quite figured out what she wants to do with her life, Luke the writer (Marc Poppel, Dead On: Relentless II), who likes to quote Lord Byron and then there’s the “comic relief” in the form of Jerry (Bradford Bancroft, 3:15). Jerry instantly became my least favorite character but in his defense, the antagonist of the film had not yet been introduced…
- River Rat Ray: The self-proclaimed River Rat Ray (Stephen Shellen) will serve as the guide for the four friends as they make their way down the Zambezi River, he also serves as the film’s antagonist and he is quite effective in this role. There is almost immediate friction with Ray and the four friends… Ray is super intense, the exact opposite of people on vacation looking to have a good time. But the fun loving friends aren’t the only ones who have an issue with Ray… Ray seemingly has a rivalry going on with a guy named Von Hoenigen. In Ray’s world view, Von Hoenigen is trying to take his river guide business away from him, something Carl tries to give Ray some free legal advice on. But Ray has a different solution to his Von Hoenigen problem… he cuts the dude’s head off after a confrontation between the two rivals… Ray catches up with the group and totally freaks everyone out as he proudly holds Von Hoenigen’s head as a trophy.
- It Was A Bad Day: Ray has officially gone off the rails… and everyone is now terrified of him and rightfully so. Ray now doesn’t just bark orders at the rafters, he does so with an AK-47 and other weapons pointed at them. Ray gets even more disgusting when he rapes Anne one night. After that incident, Carl, Luke and Jerry devise a plan where one of them will make a run for it at day break and try to get help. Carl volunteers to be the man to make the run, giving Terlesky a chance to flex some action muscle… when Ray realizes that Carl has gone AWOL, he and his AK-47 immediately goes after him… which opens up the door for Luke, Anne and Jerry to head down the river and get away from Ray… but given the vibe Damned River had pretty much from the start, I didn’t have a good feeling that things would have a rosy ending for the four friends who just wanted to have some white water rafting fun.
I would not classify watching Damned River as a nightmare, but it lost some steam in the middle and the ending of the movie did bother me… you have Mavuso, the local Zimbabwe contact who arranged for the four friends to go down the river with psychopath Ray in the first place, show up and give his condolences and say goodbye to the Americans after the shit they went through… it’s not like Ray wasn’t crazy before that trip, Mavuso you should be ashamed of yourself!
I would be ashamed of myself if I didn’t have some Bonus Bullet Points ready to wrap up this review…
- If You Ever: …wanted a movie to start off with a young boy discovering the torso of a person floating in a river, then Damned River is the movie for you.
- Disturbing Quote #1: “The guy’s got a got a dick like a Harley Davidson, you’ve got to kick it to start it.”
- Produced By: Lance Hool was one of the producers of the film. Lance’s name is one I am familiar with from the work he did on Cannon movies 10 to Midnight and Missing in Action.
- If You Ever: …wanted to see a grown ass man wrestle an inflatable crocodile, then Damned River is the movie for you.
- Disturbing Quote #2: “I know the exact depth of my shit.”
- AKA: The working title for Damned River was Devil’s Odds.
