The River Avon carries a calm that feels faintly dishonest. Morning mist rests over the water, boats move through the pale light, and beneath that quiet surface people keep disappearing. Ric Rawlins builds Wild Swimmers around this contradiction, finding dread in a place associated with leisure, health, and escape. The river offers freedom until it begins to resemble a mouth.
Deji, played by Valerie Kwok, is a journalism student from Hong Kong studying in England. An end-of-term assignment asks her to find a story with lasting potential, and she turns toward the 2018 death of a teenage swimmer. A retired police officer remembers details that never sat comfortably inside the official drowning verdict. A witness claimed the girl had been pulled beneath the water. The postmortem found marks on her neck resembling snake bites.
Other deaths follow the same current. Deji begins tracing them with Kim, a photography student played by Caroline Murray, and the investigation leads toward Gerald Baker, a local fisherman concealing a much older existence. He is a vampire who has survived for centuries by remaining beneath the silty water, hidden from the sun and from generations willing to call each body an accident.
Exile and the Need to Know
Deji’s search carries weight because truth is not an academic exercise for her. Her distance from Hong Kong, her separation from her family, and the treatment of journalists there have shaped her into someone who cannot easily turn away from an unanswered death. Kwok plays this without grand speeches. Her determination appears in the way Deji keeps returning to the river, even after curiosity has become danger.
There is loneliness beneath that resolve. Phone conversations with her family remind her of the life she cannot safely re-enter, while the investigation gives her a purpose that can temporarily cover the distance. Rawlins finds a strong idea here: a woman displaced by political fear discovers a local community quietly accepting its own buried history. The connection is present, though the screenplay rarely gives it enough room to breathe.
Kim offers companionship and practical help after being removed from her photography course. Murray brings warmth to their scenes, especially when the pair begin treating the mystery as shared work instead of Deji’s private obsession. Their friendship develops with an ease missing from several other relationships, yet Kim remains frustratingly indistinct. The film tells us where her studies have gone wrong but little about what she wants beyond the investigation.
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Mark, Deji’s boyfriend, suffers from rougher writing. He asks her to carry a tracker while she investigates suspicious deaths along an isolated river. The film frames his concern as possessive, but the situation makes his request appear sensible. His later arrival near the water turns the tracker into machinery for the plot, and his death in front of Deji provides shock without deepening their thinly drawn relationship. A conflict about control becomes a shortcut toward grief.
Mist on the Water
Rawlins is most assured when watching the Avon rather than explaining it. Sunrise images give the river a cold beauty, with mist hanging above the surface like something exhaled from below. Daylight does little to reduce the unease. The open countryside remains exposed and strangely private, a place where danger has nowhere to hide except under the water itself.
One of the film’s strongest images arrives when a couple notices a dark, scarecrow-like figure looming above the river. It looks ancient, misplaced, and patient. No immediate explanation is offered, which allows the shape to gather menace. Later shots reveal the disguise too clearly, and the physical illusion collapses. The figure appears too narrow to conceal a person, turning an eerie presence into visible costume construction.
The vampire suffers whenever the camera grants him similar scrutiny. Robin Bailes gives Gerald a sour, watchful quality, but the creature rarely feels physically threatening. Mark’s attack is weakened by blood of an unnaturally bright red, while makeup covering the vampire’s face vanishes between frontal and profile shots. These inconsistencies may be small, yet horror depends on the viewer trusting what has entered the frame.
The idea behind the monster remains richer than its appearance. A vampire who survives sunlight by sinking into murky water belongs specifically to this landscape. He has turned the Avon into shelter, hunting ground, and grave. The river protects him because people already expect it to take lives.
A Mystery Losing Its Current
The opening investigation gives Wild Swimmers its clearest shape. The retired officer’s account, the bite marks, and the chain of drownings create a mystery that pulls Deji forward one discovery at a time. Once Gerald’s identity becomes clear, that structure loosens. Questions give way to pursuit, and the film’s limitations become harder to conceal.
A chase through the darkness runs past the point of tension. The image becomes difficult to read, then shifts visibly from night toward early morning. Instead of sensing Deji’s exhaustion, the viewer begins measuring the daylight. During an attack on her boat, the editing creates another problem by making the shore appear close enough for escape long before she reacts.
Near the end, the film cuts into Gerald’s past. Newly transformed and unable to return to his family, he faces the loss of his former life. The scene briefly offers sorrow to a creature previously treated as a lurking threat. Its timing interrupts the rising action, while the fragments reveal too little about the centuries that followed. His immortality should feel like an endless sentence. Here, it becomes a late footnote.
The river remains after the mythology thins out. It holds the mist, the bodies, the silence of official explanations, and the fear of looking closely. Rawlins finds his deepest horror there, in water that keeps moving while carrying everything people have chosen not to see.
Wild Swimmers was released on Amazon Prime Video on March 31, 2026. You can rent or buy the film on the platform. The story follows a journalism student who investigates a series of mysterious drownings in a local river and discovers an ancient vampire.
Where to Watch Wild Swimmers (2025) Online
Full Credits
Title: Wild Swimmers
Distributor: Filmhub
Release date: March 31, 2026
Rating: 16+
Running time: 77 minutes
Director: Ric Rawlins
Writers: Ric Rawlins
Cast: Valerie Kwok, Caroline Murray, Robin Bailes, Harry Mason, Richard Chivers
Director of Photography (Cinematographer): Ric Rawlins, Ali Jennings
Composer: Myles McLeod
The Review
Wild Swimmers
The River Avon carries the film with a quiet, mistbound menace that its vampire never earns. Valerie Kwok gives Deji conviction, and her search for truth lends the mystery a human ache, yet the surrounding relationships remain thin and the final act loses itself in awkward chases, exposed effects, and a misplaced origin story. There is beauty here, and a faint sadness too, buried beneath water the screenplay cannot fully sound.
PROS
- Haunting River Avon imagery
- Valerie Kwok’s grounded lead performance
- Strong investigative opening
- Distinct regional atmosphere
CONS
- Unconvincing creature effects
- Thin supporting characters
- Mishandled boyfriend subplot
- Faltering final-act pacing
- Distracting continuity errors
