#116: Don’t Let the Riverbeast Get You!

Release Date: September 2nd, 2012

Format: Streaming (YouTube)

Written by: Matt Farley and Charles Roxburgh

Directed by: Charles Roxburgh

3.5 Stars

How is one supposed to approach a criticism of Don’t Let the Riverbeast Get You!? It’s the equivalent of taking a five-year-old girl’s heartfelt crayon drawing of a purple unicorn riding across a golden field, and telling her that her technique is lacking and that you didn’t understand her use of negative space. As a critic, you’re missing the point.

Sure, Don’t Let the Riverbeast Get You! is amateurish. The actors are clearly inexperienced, and Riverbeast lacks major production values across the board, from its cheap digital photography to its laughably inconsistent audio track. On a technical level it tries, and fails, valiantly. 

But damn it, a movie can’t have more heart than Don’t Let the Riverbeast Get You! This is art for art’s sake. You can tell that creators Matt Farley and Charles Roxburgh set out to make the best movie they could possibly make with what they had, and they did! They did it! They made a movie.

It’s well-written, it’s funny, it’s ambitious, and it’s earnest. There’s no winking at the camera, no irony. This is not Sharknado. It’s also not one of those “so bad it’s good” movies a la Tommy Wiseau’s The Room. That’s a movie made by a professional, paid crew helmed by a completely incompetent narcissist who doesn’t understand how movies work.

Matt Farley and Charles Roxburgh clearly know how movies work, and they know that it’s going to take a village of supportive friends and family working for free to make one. It’s going to take lots of time. It’s going to be hard. It’s never going to pay anyone a dime.

But they made it. They made a movie through sheer force of will and artistic desire. It’s an admirable achievement, and a great movie. I swear.