The Return (DVD)

...mysteriously similar to other sin the hotel and her tendencies towards self harm are becoming increasingly dangerous. Is she going mad? Did some trauma in her past leave her incapable of grasping reality? As she start to undig the past mystery's of the town in which she finds herself and starts to unravel the trauma of her past, she must chose her friends wisely, fight the supernatural forces at work and heal the relationships which have broken down ...
...unlocking the mystery? And will her sexual attraction to a gruff home owner deliver more than she is expecting?

The Return is a sleepy thriller dipped in creepy Southern atmosphere; it's like a lazy, hazy Texas day.... hard work, makes you feel lethargic but eventually quite satisfying. The screenplay is riddled with useless plot twists, there are some serious pacing problems and it doesn't make a lick of sense, but it is refreshing ... more

An insomniac, troubled sales representative for a transport company, Joanna is on a trip to Texas, but when she arrives she is haunted by brutal and violent hallucinations of a very personal nature. Everything around her seems to be interlinked; tings she drew as a child mysteriously pop up as graffiti, her room is mysteriously similar to other sin the hotel and her tendencies towards self harm are becoming increasingly dangerous. Is she going mad? Did some trauma in her past leave her incapable of grasping reality? As she start to undig the past mystery's of the town in which she finds herself and starts to unravel the trauma of her past, she must chose her friends wisely, fight the supernatural forces at work and heal the relationships which have broken down around her. Does her father hold the key to unlocking the mystery? And will her sexual attraction to a gruff home owner deliver more than she is expecting?

The Return is a sleepy thriller dipped in creepy Southern atmosphere; it's like a lazy, hazy Texas day.... hard work, makes you feel lethargic but eventually quite satisfying. The screenplay is riddled with useless plot twists, there are some serious pacing problems and it doesn't make a lick of sense, but it is refreshing to see a horror movie with a real story, emphasise on characters and I found the idea that problems of the past slowly bleed into the present quite scary. Caught between being too artsy for the MTV generation and not substantial enough for anyone wishing to see a truly good thriller it wanders in no man's land never finding it's grove and never offering anything which will truly grab aficionados. But it is not as bad as critics will try and have you believe and actually builds to a surprisingly moving conclusion. The Return is nothing special; clunky, silly and occasionally just bizarre, but for a Friday night in its eerie, entertaining and mildly shocking enough to achieve a few thrills.

The Return's screenplay actually creates quite a good story, one which poses some interesting questions about how feelings, emotions and situations in the past have repercussions in our presents and one which manages to weave a healthy dose of character development into the proceedings. The problem with the script is that it doesn't know what it wants to be, what it wants the audience to feel or even what conclusion it want to end things on, and as a result we get a mish-mash of styles, genres and plot twists. It's a murder mystery were the murderer is never truly revealed, a psychological thriller with little psychological insight and a horror which is never very horrific and this clash of ideas makes for a disjointed and confusing ride. Scenes intersect each other for little rhyme or reason, Joanna's hallucinations are haphazardly splashed at inappropriate intervals and it poses more questions than it actually answers. And as a result the pace becomes ridiculous, there are stretches when nothing happens, which is then offset by sequences that are so jam packed full of revelations and action that it is truly disorientating. This makes a large proportion of the film pretty hard work, just when you think you have got to grips with the story, the rug is pulled from under you and you are left confused again. However, I quite liked the character development of Joanna; she is certainly more likeable than the usual scream-queen-in-distress that Hollywood churns out, her back-story is interesting and her relationship with her father complex enough to be believable which raises the stakes high enough to keep things interesting.

Adam Sussman's screenplay also side steps some horror/thriller clichés with a certain amount of style; the characters don't act stupidly, there are no 'why the hell did you do that?' moments and its willingness to mess around with time is misguided but applaud able. Perhaps one of the most laboured aspects of the piece is it use of metaphors; which should be an advantage if used in a lyrical manner, but here we are repeatedly bludgeoned with obvious and tired one which show little insight into the characters. Joanna is running from her past WE GET IT!! We do not need to see repeated shots of her driving; driving in the rain, driving in the sun, driving at day, driving at night, driving on busy roads, driving on open roads, seriously half of the of movie is long shots of her car (which mysteriously turns from black to red and then to black again). However, one of the bravest and most unique things about The Return is the fact that it doesn't actually have a villain, which makes things ever more sinister. The villain is time and in that respect the screenplay is actually pretty scary; the idea is that you can run from your past, desperately burring your head and praying to elude your problems but it will always catch you up and may just build a force and life of its own... an idea which is essentially pretty terrifying.

Asif Kapachia is making a different movie to the script (and I suspect to what the studio was expecting). He believes he is directing a drama, a weepy about healing relationships, laying ones past to rest and moving onwards and upwards. It's obvious that he does not want to make a thriller and so he pays little attention to building tension and throws pathetic attempts at the occasional 'jumpy' bit. He relies on tried and tested methods of raising a few scares, almost like it's a chore and sign posts any horror way before it actually comes along. He doesn't show the kind of control to make the complicated hallucination, past bleeding into present, sequences work without confusing the audience or breaking up the already flagging pacing. He also seems to get bored half way through, letting the story flounder for a good 30 minutes before pulling back the reigns and delivering a thrilling, moving and sombre final act. And that is what is so annoying, he shows signs of being a really good director; there are alot of affecting scenes (the few scenes between Gellar and Sheppard are brilliantly played), the last scene is remarkably well restraint and the way in which he plays the time trippy final 'revelation' is pretty accomplished. And it is hard not to admire someone who is obviously so talented, but so mismatched with the material and someone who is so willing to break convention that ruins his own movie by making it too complex, confusing and disjointed.

Sarah Michelle Gellar is the scream queen for people who don't like horror movies and she is actually much better than alot of people seem to give her credit for. I have no doubt that she is one of the best young actresses in Hollywood , even though she seems to have no filter for dodgy scripts, and here she is fairly compelling, achieving what she can with a deceptively simple character. She brings enough emotion to the dramatic sequences to make them affecting, is very believable as a tortured soul and plus she is extremely attractive. I enjoyed the relationship between her and Peter O'Brien (who fares fairly well as a tortured soul love interest) which had enough tortured sexual repression to give the flick a bit of edge and I thoroughly believed in her increasing emotional instability. However, I feel that her attempts to separate herself from Buffy (by playing a pathetic character in all her films) comes off a little bit stale, does she feel that she will be typecast if she lays on a few jabs or kicks?

The Return is sumptuously produced; with Hollywood style (and budget) mixed with edgy art house texture it looks really good. The visuals are suitably dark and gothic with murky camerawork which allows for a duly creepy atmosphere and helps reflect the increasing turmoil in which Joanna finds herself. Putting a horror movie in Texas is always going to be a good move; the old sensibility of southern culture, the seething underbelly of violence, the beautiful but scrappy architecture, the rich history and the wide spread folklore/urban myths surrounding it always adds an extra edge of fright to a thriller. Here it works very serviceably, the sets are reminiscent of every other thriller in memory, but do the job of raising the Halloween fright factor whilst increase the atmosphere of it all.

You will either love or hate the ending of The Return; you'll either be disappointed by the lack of a twist or pleasantly surprised by the restraint and sombre atmospherics of it all. The final few reels don't tie all the loose ends together (by that point the screen writer and director have lost all hope of making anything coherent out of the film) but are genuinely surprising enough to make an impact. Delivered in a silent, graceful montage it leaves the audience with a sombre feeling that scares more than any major twist..

Overall The Return is a mess of a movie; disjointed, incoherent and seriously lacking in the scare department.. but it is also quite well written, acted and fairly cleverly plotted. It's not the six sense but nor is it the Wicker Man remake; somewhere in-between diabolical and exception it carves it's only little niche and for 80 something minutes it is consistently entertaining. 

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