Joshua Giuliano’s River brings Jane Levy and Jessica Rothe together as estranged sisters in a horror story shaped by an unusual approach to sound and violence. The feature expands Giuliano’s acclaimed 2018 short film In Sound, We Live Forever into a longer story, carrying its experimental audio-visual concept into a feature designed to make sound, anticipation and what appears on screen central to its horror. Dane DiLiegro also stars as the faceless killer, adding a physically imposing presence to a project that Giuliano has developed for more than six years.
The connection to In Sound, We Live Forever gives River an unusual foundation. In the short, Giuliano separated what audiences heard from what they saw, allowing the sounds of a brutal slasher attack to arrive before the camera showed its graphic aftermath. That choice made sound an important part of how the horror was experienced rather than simply supporting the images. Giuliano has brought the same heavy-dissonance sound design into River, giving the feature a direct creative link to the short that started the project and showing how the original experiment could be expanded without losing its impact.
The film’s central casting further strengthens its place within modern horror. Jane Levy, who faced the intense demands of Fede Álvarez’s 2013 Evil Dead reboot and later starred in Don’t Breathe, plays one of the estranged sisters. Jessica Rothe, meanwhile, became widely associated with horror through the time-looping Happy Death Day franchise. Bringing Levy and Rothe together gives River two performers with established connections to the genre, while their relationship as sisters provides the story with a more personal focus. Their presence places the emotional connection between the characters alongside the film’s horror premise.
Dane DiLiegro plays the faceless killer stalking the sisters, and his physical presence is another notable element of the production. At 6-foot-9, DiLiegro is a former professional basketball player who has moved into creature and horror acting. His credits include playing the Predator in the 2022 film Prey, a role that demonstrated how his unusual height and imposing frame can contribute to a threatening screen presence. In River, those qualities make him a natural fit for a masked figure whose identity is defined by menace rather than a visible face.
Behind Giuliano’s feature debut is experience from established names in horror. Steven Schneider, known as a producer behind Paranormal Activity, Insidious and Split, is part of the project, while Nick Antosca brings credits that include Channel Zero, Brand New Cherry Flavor and The Act. Their involvement places Giuliano’s first feature within a production backed by filmmakers with substantial experience in psychological, supernatural and genre storytelling. That support is notable as Giuliano moves from an acclaimed short into his first full feature film.
For Giuliano, however, River is also the result of a long creative process. He spent more than six years developing, writing and refining the film, with a clear aim of moving away from increasingly complicated approaches to modern horror. Instead, Giuliano wanted to return to something simple and primal: human characters trapped in nature and forced to confront the relentlessness of death.
That idea helps connect the film’s long development with its stripped-down creative approach. Rather than relying only on elaborate horror concepts, River is built around a basic threat, a vulnerable group of characters and sound that can shape what audiences experience before an image confirms it. With Jane Levy and Jessica Rothe at its centre, Dane DiLiegro behind the faceless killer, and Giuliano extending an experiment that began with his 2018 short, the film represents a focused attempt to make horror feel immediate, physical and unsettling through simple storytelling choices.
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