British horror director Adam Mason, who has been building a following in horror circles with films such as Broken and The Devil’s Chair, returns with his first US feature film. We first meet the happily-married Clark and Summer driving across California on their way to tell Summer’s parents the good news about her pregnancy. Traveling across the seemingly endless desolate desert landscape, their car has a blow out that sends them into a near fatal wreck. With the car inoperable and little chance of passers-by they set out on foot to the nearest town on the map, the uninviting sounding Blood River, but when they get there they find themselves in a ghost town, alone. That is until a drifter named Joseph appears out of the sweltering desert heat. Charming and menacing at the same time, Joseph may be more than he appears. Blood River is the best kind of psychological horror. Instead of assaulting the viewer with blood (though there’s some of that too) it instead slowly turns the screw and ratchets up the tension with a tale of Old Testament vengeance.