History Main / RiverOfInsanity

* ''TheRevenant'' has many elements of it, though it's not a straight example.
* The 1983 movie ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nankyoku_Monogatari Antarctica]]'' is based on a 1958 Japanese expedition: two dogs [[RealityIsUnrealistic really survived]] by themselves for [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome one full year]] in Antarctica and [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming recognized]] their master when he came back: tough dogs.

-->'''Gibbs:''' Let's put some distance between us and this island, and head out to open sea.
-->'''Sparrow:''' Yes to the first, yes to the second, but only insofar as we keep to the shallows as much as possible.
-->'''Gibbs:''' That seems a mite... contradictory, Cap'n.

* The ''[[Franchise/CrashBandicoot Crash Bandicoot]]'' games have quite a few [[{{Pun}} River of N.Sanity]] levels:

** During which they are tracked the whole way and shot at by arrows, ''Apocalypse Now'' style. We also see Boromir get more and more unstable en route (in the book, it's because of Aragorn's uncertainty about where they are going). Legolas noted that they had to get off the river; at that point they were just trying to outrace the enemy. When Boromir's [[FaceHeelRevolvingDoor madness]] [[LetsSplitUpGang broke up]] the Fellowship, he inadvertently saved the mission. (Ironically, Gandalf had planned to break up all along and send the [[KansasCityShuffle decoy hobbits]] to Minas Tirith.)

* There were many, ''many'' doomed voyages into the interior of Australia, filled with some of the harshest desert known to man and landscape utterly foreign to Europeans. One notable mention was [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sturt Charles Sturt]], who nearly died multiple times and even took a ''boat'' with him to settle the debate about if Australia had an inland sea. Many Australian explorers barely came back alive and others died miserable lonely deaths. Surviving comfortably in the outback is perfectly possible, but they were too proud to ask survival tips from the natives (didn't help that Europeans and native Australians were prone to not understanding each other even when they had words in common- their worldviews were impossibly mismatched on many points). Ironically, there ''was'' an inland sea... once. Stuart and his fellows were just about 100 million years too late.

* The 1996 documentary ''Seven Go Mad in Peru'' is a non-lethal version. No-one actually goes insane; they start off believing that MiseryBuildsCharacter but instead of becoming FireForgedFriends get plagued by insects, divided by TestosteronePoisoning and disillusioned by reality.

* In ''TheRedTent'', Jacob crosses a fast river ahead of his family and servants, and has his famed vision of angels ascending and descending a ladder or staircase, as well as an alleged fight with one (which results in his thigh being dislocated.) He is shown to have a fever, and the other characters take his visions as delirium. [[spoiler: This is an important point, as it is essentially where Jacob (fearful from his unexpected VisionQuest, and later jealous of his wealthy twin brother Esau) starts to listen to Simon and Levi's influence and [[FaceHeelTurn become corrupt and greedy]]]].

** '''Film/RescueDawn'', after Dieter escapes.

[[folder:Film]]

* In 1291, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandino_and_Ugolino_Vivaldi the Vivaldi brothers]] set out from Genoa in two galleys filled with provisions, trade goods, and a missionary or two. Their intent was to bypass the Venetian monopoly on the overland trade with India and China; it's unclear whether they planned to circumnavigate Africa like the Portuguese would in the mid-1400s, or head west and pull a ChristopherColumbus two centuries early. What ''is'' known is that after passing Cape Nun on the southern coast of Morocco, they were never seen again (although rumors persisted up to Columbus's time that they made it to the tropics before being captured by one of the local West African kingdoms).

** Although they do actually journey for a considerable distance down the Great River.

* The ''[[Franchise/CrashBandicoot Crash Bandicoot]]'' games have quite a few River of [[{{Pun}} n.sanity]] levels:

* The ''[[Franchise/CrashBandicoot Crash Bandicoot]]'' games:

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Crowhurst Donald Crowhurst]] was a British businessman who entered the 1968 ''Sunday Times'' Golden Globe Race, in which he was expected to complete a non-stop circumnavigation of the world single-handedly. Crowhurst, who was in deep financial trouble, entered the race in hopes of winning the cash prize. Unfortunately, he encountered difficulty early in the voyage and began reporting false positions, which gradually [[SanitySlippage eroded his mental state]] and is believed to have led to his [[DrivenToSuicide suicide]].

* Quite in the lines of Lope de Aguirre in terms of tough luck (not so much in insanity) is Juan Díaz de Solís. He discovered the "Fresh Sea": Río de la Plata, an estuary so big it looks like a sea. They thought that it may be a good idea to go upriver, set their feet on the land and see if that pesky Eldorado was there. He didn't found it, what he did found was hostile natives, who killed him and his escort in full view of all the men aboard. Taking good notice, his second-in-command decided that it was about time to go back to Spain.

In brief: Any river voyage (''or other journey into the wilderness'') is a doomed expedition in which the characters alternately [[KillEmAll die]], [[DrivenToMadness go mad]], [[ShaggyDogStory get lost]], [[GoingNative go native]], or otherwise [[AlmostDeadGuy barely live]] [[BringNewsBack to tell the tale]].

* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'' has the ''[[BigBoosHaunt River of Sorrow]]'', where the protagonist Naked Snake has to walk up a stream and meets the dead Cobra Unit member The Sorrow, who summons ghosts of the soldiers he has killed throughout the game, [[PacifistRun provided the player actually killed them]].

* Zone 3 In ''VideoGame/Amagon'' is a rare PlatformGame example. The hero must travel down a stream, jump logs and fend off creatures that jump out of the water, and of course, [[SuperDrowningSkills avoid falling into the river]] himself.

* Subverted in ''PiratesOfTheCaribbean 2'', when Capt. Sparrow flees upriver into the jungle in order to escape the Kraken. Sure, he encounters [[WackyWaysideTribe cannibals]] and dangerous voodoo gods, but he seems to be [[WeirdnessMagnet in his element]] nonetheless.