Don't Let the Riverbeast Get You! (2012)

As we wrap up October, our indie pick for the month is one I've been meaning to watch for a long time, so once it appeared on Plex, I figured I'd make it happen. I first got wind of the movie's existence through our friend Jon Cross at the After Movie Diner. He does a great job getting the word out about all kinds of indie creatives, and deserves a lot of credit for the work he does in that regard. 

Don't Let the Riverbeast Get You! stars Matt Farley as Neil Stuart, disgraced local tutor who was run out of town when he told everyone about the riverbeast he encountered. He returns when his God-cousin is getting married, but the demons of his past haunt him. If only he could prove to the world that he's not making it up. It won't be easy, as rivers are mutable by nature, so it's hard to know where to spot the beast should it return. When locals who once had issues with Stuart turn up dead though, is it his doing, or is the beast returning to kill?

This was a fantastic movie, a lot of fun, but it is possible because I grew up near where the film takes place in New Hampshire, that my bit of homesickness mingled with the characters and accents to make it more charming for me. Just the same, I think the goofiness and charm transcends that for people who don't have that same connection. How do you not find Chekhov's kitty litter funny? Or when Stuart, angry at a local reporter who's trying to ruin his life, tells him he's going to "give him a knuckle sandwich"? We also had a fun monster, which is important for a 50s monster movie send-up. I think for horror-comedy fans, this isn't as gory as you might want; and the film is a bit long, but on that score it felt like every time it was about to lose me, something would happen that made me laugh out loud, which pulled me back in and got me reinvested. When you're looking for a film to watch, I think fun is the most important thing, and this delivered on that.

Matt Farley's Neil Stuart character is the center of the action, and what I loved was how no one thought he was goofy for being a tutor with a set of guidelines for his students--including a dress code, or for not having a cellphone in 2012, or not driving in New Hampshire (which, as someone who also didn't drive in New Hampshire, I can say that would be considered the goofiest), but because he said saw a riverbeast. Yet, it was all those little touches to his character that made the rest of it all work. I can see though how the humor in his part may not have worked for everyone, like when he asks his tutor friend Troy (Bryan Fortin) if he thinks the Ministry of Tutors has more work for him so he can pay famed hunter Ito Hootkins (Jeff Farley) to help him find the riverbeast; or when his friend Ted's (Tom Scalzo) girlfriend leaves him because she's feeling restless, and he offers the friend a piece of beef jerky to make him feel better. It worked for me though, and Farley set the tone that made that work.

There are a lot of send-ups or spoofs made of the 50s monster movie, and I often have trouble getting into them because it's hard for me to connect the modern movie, made on modern color film with modern settings, with the movies I watched on TV growing up from the 50s in black and white with clothing and styles from that time. I thought this did a great job of splitting the difference though. The dialog was a mix of something from that period, and modern ways of speaking, with Farley's character doing more of the anachronisms, while some of the more uncouth characters defaulted to the modern new England bro type, like the guy who's engaged to his former love telling him he's going to "give him a beatin'." I also liked Sharon Scalzo's Allie character, because she played up that vibe of the 50s teen girl character from those older films in the way she spoke and interacted with Stuart. Another part that I thought was funny was how Ted meets his girlfriend Pamela (Tiffany L'Heureux) when she dances next to him playing guitar at the park. She then explains that her dance is called "popping and locking," in this way that was completely like a character in one of those old movies explaining a popular dance that was however many years old at that point too. Tonally it all came together in a way that these old monster movie send-ups don't always do for me.

I listed this as horror-comedy, but when I think of my favorite horror-comedies, they're all much grosser, like Blood Diner, Bad Taste, or even Bloodsucking Pharaohs in Pittsburgh, there's more over-the-top gore, plus other gross elements, like disgusting food, vomit, or gooey slimy things. This by contrast is relatively clean, there's one shot of innards from a victim of the riverbeast, and we get some potato casserole thrown on the ground, but that's about it. It actually worked with the rest of the film's clean feel, with everyone in clean clothes, yards nicely landscaped and houses well-kept--even the scene at the rock lookout, I believe that's a spot in Manchester where my buddy and I went rockclimbing one time, and if that is the spot, it was also a place where kids threw things like beer bottles and TVs from off the cliff face, so we had to step around the broken glass while we belayed the person climbing, but they didn't show any of that in the film. Back in high school my buddy and I used to do the Firecracker pickled sausage challenge with those gross horror comedies, where we'd buy a bunch of them at the convenience store and see who could eat them at the grossest parts. This is a movie where we didn't have to worry about losing our appetite, which was a fun change of pace.

Finally, as I'm wont to do, I'm making this last paragraph about me, especially since this film took place near where I grew up. I've been living in Philadelphia since 2014, and I don't have any plans to move back to the Southern Maine/New Hampshire area where I'm from, but it's nice to find some home cooking like this while I'm living down here. One of the things this movie spotlighted was the regional accent, which I don't really have--if I get tired I may drop my Rs, but now I've also picked up the South Philly "O" sound, so I'm all a mess. When I met my wife, she joked about the accent, but assumed because I didn't have it, that my parents wouldn't either. I informed her, after we heard Emeril Legasse on Top Chef and she got a kick out him, that my parents had even stronger accents--which was only a few minutes before my mother was picking us up at the hotel. First thing my mom says when we get in the car: "I need to go to Wahl-maht to get some things fuh yah fah-thah." Later, when we were walking on the beach, Jen said "awff" for "off," and my mom said "oh, do I detect an accent?" For me, this film really captured the charm of that moment of my wife and mother meeting for the first time, and just the charm of where I grew up, which, again, was really nice as a New Englander living in the diaspora down here in Philly. 

And with that, let's wrap this up. As of this writing, you can stream this free on Plex and the Roku Channel, or buy it digitally for a low price on Amazon or Vimeo. Also, if you're a fan of physical media, this is available to buy on Blu-ray through Gold Ninja Video. At the very least, this is worth streaming, but I also think for those physical media fans, worth adding to your collection.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2202382

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!