The River (TV Series) Magus (2012) User Reviews

I liked the first 30 minutes....

[maarten_wieringa7 · 6/10 · 14 March 2012]

So as i say in the title: I liked the first 30 minutes.

The characters getting introduced and you are waiting patiently on what's going to happen.

But at some point between minute 30 and 43 the mother is gonna yell to that thing that's haunting them and it looked so stupid. She can't act and the tense in that scene was gone in a second.'Is my husband still alive'? One time he isn't, two times he is'.

Men, i was like what the hell? I red a review of another viewer and he said all the episodes after the first are better. I hope he is right and stupid moments like this will never come back.

Contrived and artificial

[timboytx · 2/10 · 7 February 2012]

This high-budget, well-acted entry into the horror genre fails in its attempt to generate chills, and its self-conscious directorial choices keep the viewer completely outside of the story. The conceit that this is documentary footage seems to be an attempt at realism, but it has the opposite effect. Every shot is perfectly lit so that we always see exactly what we need to see, we always hear exactly what we need to hear--but of course there isn't a single significant shot of the evil entity wreaking havoc on the character. We are supposed to be scared by the shaking cameras, flickering lights and spooky noises, evidently. And sometimes, such as in the final scene on the bow between Lincoln and Tess, we SHOULD be able to see the cameras filming the characters--as we cut back and forth between two angles--but they are nowhere to be seen. In my opinion, the choice to make this a pseudo documentary completely ruins the show because it never stops drawing attention to itself.