Oxygen (2021)

Director: Alexandre Aja
Writer(s): Christie LeBlanc
Starring: Melanie Laurent, Mathieu Amalric, Malik Zidi and Laura Boujenah

A woman wakes up in a tiny chamber with no recollection of who she is or how she got there in Alexander Aja’s Oxygen, which is a complete 180 from his previous effort, the embarrassingly overrated alligator-attack-during-storm movie, Crawl. 

This one is centered around what could be considered a gimmick: it takes place almost entirely in one setting, with one visible actor (in this case, Melanie Laurent), who wakes up in a confined cryogenic chamber and discovers she has 90 minutes before she runs out of the titular necessity. As if that weren't enough, she also has no idea who she is or how she ended up there. If that sounds like it will be boring to you, it might very well be: there’s really no action to speak of, and it’s definitely not the type of movie that will appeal to fans of blood-soaked action, or those who like their films to have a frenetic pace. 

Now, having literally one actress, in one setting, with no dialogue, would get dull for even the most patient of cinephiles; thankfully, Elizabeth Hansen - the name of our solo protagonist - has one ally in the form of MILO, an advanced AI computer system. Basically Siri on steroids, Liz can use MILO to call people she knows, ask him questions about her past, view her social media accounts, and even to access information about the strange box she finds herself in.

Unsurprisingly, Liz isn’t just content with waiting for her impending doom, so she kills time by looking for a way out, while simultaneously piecing together the story of how she got there in the first place. Little by little, we learn revelations about her as a person, and what led her (or someone else…) to choose this fate for her. Was she a bad person sentenced to die by asphyxiation? A woman who was just in the wrong place at the wrong time? The twists and turns come at a relaxed pace, and don’t really do much to ratchet up the tension, but they’re close enough together to prevent things from getting too boring.

It all plays out like a futuristic version of Buried, that Ryan Reynolds movie that found him buried alive in a coffin with very little oxygen. Whereas that film used close, in-tight shots to maximize the feeling of claustrophobia, Oxygen is shot in such a way that some of the intensity is lost. The room usually feels too wide and open and most shots, it's not until the main character attempts to move that you really see how tight the chamber is, but considering she isn’t mobile very often, it mostly looks a lot bigger than it should. (As a second opinion, my wife is terribly claustrophobic - to the extent she can't ride elevators - and she had no problems making it through this movie.)

Also eliminating some potential for terror: MILO. While he is a computer incapable of human emotions, he is too advanced for the story. I guess it was a necessity to have in order to move the story along, but a lot of it feels like a copout, considering he knows how to do virtually everything Liz requests. 

All of it leads to a rather unsatisfying, ambiguous ending that really didn’t feel all that natural to me. The actual meaning of that final shot - the only one that doesn’t take place in the small pod - is up for grabs, with even the director stating that he doesn’t know exactly what to make of it. While I don’t mind endings like that, other people who like closure or their stories to have a resolution, will probably be frustrated with this one. Especially those who get caught up in the story.

I guess looking back, Oxygen isn’t a horror movie at all, but rather a sci-fi/drama mix. It isn’t interested in exploiting the claustrophobic setting, which also makes one wonder why they even centered the story around it in the first place. But what it lacks in tension, it makes up for in dramatics, with a story that frequently attempts to tug on the heartstrings, rather than increasing the viewer's heart rate. One could certainly be forgiven - and let down - for assuming the contrary, with director Alexandre Aja having made a name for himself within the horror genre, with efforts like High Tension, and the aforementioned Crawl. 

The film’s biggest strength is Melanie Laurent, as Elizabeth Hansen. She imbues her character with vulnerability, and covers a wide range of expressions and a frequent shifting of mindsets with seemingly relative ease. Thanks to her, the story comes off as believable - and interesting - when it just as easily could have been an absolute failure. 

If you’re into slow-burn movies, Oxygen might give you something to like. It’s a minimalist film that makes decent use of a single, tight setting, and an excellent performance from Melanie Laurent. But if you aren't interested in character stories or talking, then you should probably give this one a pass. 

RATING: 5.5/10.

TRAILER

3615 Code Pére Noël (aka Game Over; Dial Code: Santa Claus; Deadly Games; Hide and Freak) (1989)

Director: René Manzor
Writer(s): Manzor
Starring: Brigitte Fossey, Louis Decreux, Patrick Floersheim, and Alain Lalanne (as Alain Musy)

The perfect movie for the Scrooge in your life.

3615 Pere Noel first came to my attention late last year (2018), when some publications mentioned it was a darker version of Home Alone…made one year before that holiday classic. Even though it seemed to garner attention in the media, I still couldn’t find a way to watch it…until this year, when those darlings at Shudder finally made it available for all to see.

But let’s just get one thing out of the way, for those of you who go into a viewing of the movie with the same mindset my wife and I did, expecting a mostly-lighthearted holiday romp: this movie is unrelentingly grim. It’s not very violent, per se, but it almost seems to revel in breaking the spirit of its characters, whether it be an adult, an elderly man, or even a child—the end result is a film that’s every bit as heartbreaking as it is intense.

Alain Musy is Thomas, a particularly smart 9-year-old who is left at home on Christmas Eve with his ailing grandfather, while his mother goes off to work as manager of a department store. The family is apparently atrociously rich, as they live in a ridiculous castle-style mansion, complete with caretakers who live on the premises. She is only supposed to be gone for a few hours, but that’s as long as it takes for Thomas to get into trouble thanks to their Minitel system, France’s early version of the internet: he enters an early version of a chat room, attempts to make contact with Santa Claus, and instead gets the attention of a ne’er-do-well, who attempts to get the kid’s address before the connection is dropped.

What he does learn, however, is that the kid’s mother works for Printemps, a popular French department store; the vagabond wanders his way over there to apply for a job as Santa Claus, gets it, and then is promptly fired by Thomas’s mother after smacking a kid in the face (in his defense, the child did kind of deserve it). He goes to the personnel department to finalize the termination, when he overhears the worker—who conveniently has his back turned to the door—mention details about Thomas being home alone while is mother is at work. He hops in the back of a Printemps van, and hitches a ride to the unwitting child’s home, at which point he kills the delivery driver, in a scene that removes all doubts about his intentions.

Thomas isn’t just some normal kid, however: he’s a huge fan of action movies, and spends his free time playing “war” with his lovable dog, J.R., and keeping his diabetic, nearly-blind grandfather entertained by using him as target practice. He’s going to need all of his smarts and cunning to outwit a madman who seems hellbent only on terrorizing and murdering anyone he can…

It's a fairly thin setup, which all-too-conveniently feeds the madman all the information he needs to know—from several unrelated sources—and without anyone so much as even noticing he's around, but hey, it's a horror movie, so I suppose it's par for the course.

The movie definitely earns its comparisons to Home Alone in parts—mainly the beginning and end—but the frequent use of the term “fun” to describe this movie by many critics and cinemagoers alike make me wonder if we saw the same movie. Sure, there are some stand up and cheer moments when Thomas gains the upper hand on the intruder, but that sense of fun is destroyed in the many sequences where he displays genuine fear…an almost fourth-wall breaking taboo that really brings the film closer to reality than I was expecting (and, in some ways, hoping for). Ditto that for Thomas’ childlike sense of wonder, which remains intact, despite his unusually high IQ, leading to some rather sad scenes of anguish when his world—and everything he believes in--starts crumbling around him, including the murder of his own dog right in front of him as he hides under a table waiting for Saint Nick to arrive…this clearly isn’t a movie with “fun” on its mind.

Assuming you can shift gears, though, or that you're actually prepared for what you're in for, this is an occasionally brilliant horror tale that definitely deserves the attention it’s been garnering lately. POV scenes of legally-blind grandpops struggling to make out shapes and figures lend some credibility, and intensity, to the proceedings, while the motives of the evil Santa Claus are just as depressing as everything else in this bleak, anti-Christmas thriller.

Supposedly, the director, Rene Manzor, sued the producers of Home Alone for “ripping off” his idea. Whether that was more of a marketing stunt than an actual defense of his own material is debatable, but it's certainly unfortunate that this little gem of a movie has fallen into relative obscurity while little Kevin McCallister, and much of the cast and crew, have probably pulled in enough royalties to comfortably retire.  

RATING: 7.5/10

TRAILER

Inside (À l'intérieur) (2007)

Director: Alexandre Bustillo, Julien Maury

Writer(s): Maury and Bustillo, from a scenario by Bustillo
Starring: Alysson Paradis, Jean-Baptiste Tabourin, Claude Lule, and Beatrice Dalle

Inside, like many French horror films, plays out like an anti-thesis of the Hollywood picture. Whereas Hollywood horror consists of dumbing down ideas to cater to increasingly dull audiences, the French are consistently finding new ways to push the envelope. It doesn't always work (Ils springs immediately to mind), but you have to respect them for trying new things, instead of pandering to target demographics.

Inside is the pique of the French Horror New Wave; it is an unrelenting work of pure terror, and one of the greatest horror movies of the last twenty years, if not all time. On the one hand, it's ridiculously, graphically violent (it originally got an NC-17 rating and deserves every bit of it), and on the other, it revels in making the audience uncomfortable with scenes of almost unbearable tension. Yet, unlike so many other films that revel in the red stuff, it's not just out to shock its audience—the underlying story, while simple, manages to squeeze in a couple tender moments, before it starts going off the rails.

Generally speaking, one thing I've noticed is that horror movies with simple stories tend to be the most effective; Inside only heightens that theory. Sarah (Alysson Paradis) is still reeling from the car accident that claimed her husband, Mathieu, but that left her and her unborn child relatively unharmed. Flash forward four months. She is less than 24 hours away from having her child, when a bizarre woman known only as “la femme” (“The Woman”, and brilliantly played by Beatrice Dalle) breaks into her home. She waits until Sarah is asleep, then enters her room, armed with scissors...

And this kickstarts an epic fight between a mother, and the woman that desperately wants her child. This is the entire premise, but co-writers/directors Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury wring every ounce of possible suspense from the set-up...just when you think they've painted themselves into a corner, they find another way to catch you completely by surprise (one moment was so shocking I yelped and jumped at the same time, an incredibly-rare occurrence, then had to turn around and pick my wife's jaw up off the floor). As for the violence, it's plentiful, but it's never meant to be fun: Characters convulse, gasp for air, and cry for their mommy's before dying, and stuff like this only adds to the nauseating atmosphere.

Perhaps most impressive about all of this whole package, at least for the most part, its believability. I mean, obviously this has to stretch creative licensing a little bit for it to work (no neighbors can hear the gunshots in the dead middle of night, yet a police officer sitting outside in a car can?; why do the police never call for backup?; why does Sarah throw away a perfectly good gun in favor of a sharp object?; etc.), but the characters are refreshingly smart overall. There aren't any moments of “let's split up”, and the one time we think “La femme” has all-too-easily fooled two cops, we learn it's just a ruse on their part to try to catch her off-guard. It's sad when having sensible characters feels like a breakthrough, but such is the state of the horror film.

A word of warning that I probably shouldn't even have to waste my breath on: It's probably a good idea NOT to watch this if you are pregnant. My wife and I had seen this before, and I had a hankering to watch it again (it had been a couple years). Since my wife was around seven months pregnant, I assumed she wouldn't want to see it, but she assured me she did—and then spent the whole movie burying her face in her phone, audibly groaning during the brilliant “in the womb” sequences, and declaring afterwards that she will never watch the movie again. And this is coming from someone who quite possibly might revel in onscreen blood and gore even more than I do.

Anyone who has followed this blog for any length of time probably knows by now that I like to seek out movies that are different; that rise above the “status-quo” to show me things that I have never seen before. Movies that push the envelope, and at least attempt to shock, or get some kind of emotional rise out of me. Inside is exactly the kind of movie I'm always searching for, a film that dares you to look at, and stomach, its unending cruelty, then simultaneously dares you to look away. It is not after box office tickets, nor is it catering to teenagers in an attempt to fill multiplexes; at the same time, it's not out merely to shock or disturb. It's what a horror movie should be: a taboo-breaking, discomforting wreck of a film. It's fearless, it's unnerving, but above all it's made incredibly-well and with an abundance of talent, both in front of, and behind the camera, and that is why it's one of the greatest horror films of the past two decades. And probably beyond.

RATING: 9.5/10 

TRAILER

13 Tzameti (2005)

Director: Gela Babluani
Writer(s): Babluani
Starring: George Babluani, Aurelien Recoing, Pascal Bongard, and Fred Ulysse

Most movies are better the less you know about them going in. But the catch to that is often times the trailer already shows you more than you need to know; it’s almost as if the trailer is sabotaging its own reason for being. At the same time, though, how will you know if a movie’s for you if you don’t at least do a little bit of research?

13 Tzameti takes the whole “less is better” notion one step further—if you know anything at all about it before you go in, it will lose some impact. True to form, its own trailer—which admittedly does do a good job of accurately portraying the intensity of the actual movie, something trailers rarely do these days—reveals too much. It’s a slippery slope, I suppose, because without marketing, all you would have is an incredibly shocking movie that no one watches, and what good is that?

On the other hand, to know the main theme of 13 Tzameti is to at least partially deprive yourself of a mysterious journey. Now I’m not here to pretend that it will ruin the entire experience for you, because this is still an intense, often utterly effective film. But if you can somehow find a way to ignore everything ever written about it—including this very review--and just go in to a showing as blind and oblivious as possible, then that will help to give the film even more depth, as you slowly learn everything as the main character learns it. That would make everything even more shocking and worthwhile in the long run.

However, for those that want the typical experience—to research it and “feel it out” to see if it might be right for them—I will still offer a spoiler-free introduction to the film. Sebastian is an immigrant who works construction jobs to support his poor family. He takes a roofing job from Jean-Francois Godon, only to overhear Godon telling an associate that he is not sure how he will pay Sebastian his advance, much less the whole sum.

The situation gets even murkier when he takes an overdose of morphine and passes away—his widow informs Sebastian that she can’t pay him, and wants work on the roof halted immediately. He then overhears her talking to a family friend about a mysterious job that Godon accepted close to his death, and the instructions, as well as a train ticket, are contained in an envelope at the house. Feeling (correctly) he has been taken advantage of, he takes the envelope and hopes that it will lead him to enough quick cash to cover the amount he is owed.

Before long, and after jumping through several hoops, he ends up at a secluded house in the middle of a forest. The people there immediately know that he’s not who he claims to be, but that doesn’t stop them from using him as a pawn in a mysterious event. It all leads up to an ending that, given the rest of the film’s cynical tone, should shock no one, although it does add yet another layer of bleakness to a film that certainly wasn’t bereft of that to begin with.

Whether or not you “like” 13 Tzameti will pretty much hinge on what you feel of the entire second act; to me, it really made it feel like a one-trick pony. Its underlying theme—how far would people go to “get rich quick”—almost functions as the most basic of all “social commentary” “statements”, so it doesn’t really have much to say beyond what you can already tell from the surface. In other words, it’s not really complex enough to warrant any kind of replay factor; I can’t imagine anyone missing anything the first time.

That being said, the film’s brilliant use of black and white photography really makes this film “pop” in a way that simply wouldn’t have been possible in color. Even though the film is surprisingly saturated in light (I would have expected some of the darker scenes to feature more shadows, but that isn’t the case), this aesthetic really carries the film farther than it probably should go, and is the main reason for the overall score. There is also an undeniable intensity, at least for the first time you watch it, so expect certain scenes to stay with you for a while. However, I must admit that rewatching it wasn’t nearly as tense, and actually eroded away part of the sharp tension that I remembered.

Note that the same director, Gela Babluani, also remade this film a couple of years later—in color, no less, and with a semi-all star Hollywood cast (including 50 Cent…lol)—to absolutely abysmal reviews. And just like that, a potentially solid career in film came to an abrupt end. Hopefully he will rebound in the future, because, despite all the unevenness, 13 Tzameti certainly proves that he has some talent to burn.

RECAP: A second viewing shows that you really don’t have a need to watch 13 Tzameti more than once, but man is that first watch a doozy. This is an often intense, bleak picture, that builds up to a violent, but not entirely unforeseen, ending. It does feel a little one-note, with its main statement (how far would people go to “get rich quick”) pretty amateurish and overplayed already, and the first and third acts relatively boring by comparison. The black and white cinematography is inspired, and gives the film a certain draw that would not have been possible in color. If you want a good movie that you won’t want to watch (and shouldn’t) more than once, this should be your ticket.

RATING: 7/10

TRAILER

Eyes Without a Face (Les yeux sans visage) (1960)

Director: Georges Franju
Writer(s): Pierre Boileau, Thomas Narcejac, Jean Redon, and Claude Sautet, with additional dialogue by Pierre Gascar. Based on the novel by Redon.
Starring: Pierre Brasseur, Alida Valli, and Juliette Mayneil

Every genre of film is susceptible to an abundance of movies with recycled plots--take a little bit of plot A, sprinkle in some plot B, and climax with a touch of plot C, and voila!, you have your very own movie--but of all of them, horror seems to suffer from this the most.  This is most depressing, because it should be one of the most versatile of them all.  Instead, we horror fans are treated to countless direct-to-video borefests and tired franchises that are usually DOA before the second or third movie hits store shelves (Saw and Paranormal Activity…I’m looking at you).

That’s why I get a certain kind of satisfaction just from reading a plot synopsis that promises to deliver something new; Eyes Without a Face is just that kind of movie.  Even its basic storyline, that a doctor will stop at nothing to repair his daughter’s disfigured face, is a thing of beauty—dig in a little deeper and it goes from intriguing, to chilling.

So obsessed with finding a suitable facial replacement is Doctor Genessier, that he has his secretary, Louise, lure women to his grandiose villa, where they are drugged.  It is there that he surgically removes their faces, completely against their will, of course, and attempts to graft them onto his daughter, Christiane, whose own face was disfigured in a car accident caused by her father.  So here we have an emotional connection to the proceedings, which alone takes it above standard genre fare—this isn’t a man simply killing women because he can; he’s doing it out of love and concern for his daughter.

In the meantime, the doctor urges his daughter to hide her hideous face with a white, featureless mask, one that would go on to influence John Carpenter and an entire series of slasher films.  The mask’s effectiveness is much greater here, as Christiane spends most of the film’s running time wandering through the villa, her thoughts and emotions hidden behind the plain disguise that she is more or less forced to wear. 

But therein lies a problem:  As the well-respected doctor continues to fail, Christiane becomes more and more disillusioned with her situation, and more and more doubtful that her father can do anything to help her.  She starts to feel for the victims, often sneaking in and watching them as they lie unconscious on the operating table.  So the line between two realities are blurred:  Does the doctor really have his daughter’s best interests in mind, or is he merely obsessed with perfecting the operation simply for the fame it can award him for completing a surgery that hasn’t been done before?

It’s certainly an intriguing premise, and cinematographer Eugen Shuftan does an extraordinary job setting the visual tone for the film: the outdoor shots feature leafless trees and thick fog, when paired with the black and white photography, makes for an excellent atmosphere.  Eyes Without a Face looks gorgeous; in fact, the visuals are the main reason this movie is held in such high regard, and rightfully so.

The problem is, to simply base the movie’s power on its visuals is to completely ignore a couple of its major flaws: Exhibit A, the terrible score.  I’m surprised more people give this a pass, because I can’t think of a more misplaced set of music to an otherwise good film.  The main motif, which starts just as soon as the film’s opening credits, reminds one of a carnival, or perhaps more accurately, the intro theme to the show “Curb Your Enthusiasm”.  Either way, it’s definitely not the most striking way to start a story that’s supposed to be frightening.  Only, it gets even worse:  It’s the same track used during all of the “stalking” scenes.  So here we have playful, happy music over sequences that are designed to heighten tension.  This idea can, and has been, used to excellent effect in movies before, but if that’s what they were going for here, it fails miserably.

Exhibit B is its often plodding pace.  There are long stretches where nothing really happens, or where the camera feels like it needs to be somewhere else, rather than where it is at the moment.  The best example of this is right after we meet Christiane.  After Genessier and Louise leave her alone, she walks through the house for about three full minutes, and we follow her every move.  Only, there’s no payoff, and it doesn’t do anything to advance the plot (well, the end of that scene does serve a purpose, but there’s no need to drag the buildup to such a minor plot advancement out for so long). 

True to many movies from the same time period, the effects are rather hit-or-miss, though I was shocked that director Georges Franju even showed as much as he did.  For example, he goes out of his way to avoid showing Christiane’s face for much of the film--a smart choice--only to inexplicably reveal it later on (granted, it is kind of blurred, but the camera lingers on it for so long that you can still see just how cheesy the makeup effects are).  However, there is a rather graphic surgery scene that, for the most part, holds up well even today.  The ending also features a quick shot of a corpse that had to have been alarmingly graphic for the time period, and still quite shocking today—how it made it past censors back then is beyond me.

Speaking of the ending, I have seen some speculation as to Christiane’s true motives for doing what she does, but it completely worked for me.  I won’t reveal exactly what happens, but I felt there were enough hints given throughout that the ending felt pretty natural, rather than the shocking diversion some make it out to be.  In fact, it’s probably one of the most satisfying scenes in the entire movie, and most definitely a perfect note to end the movie on.

RECAP: I am recommending Eyes Without a Face, but not with the same unreserved enthusiasm as most critics. It’s too slow and meandering in some places, and while many critics have praised Maurice Jarre’s accompanying score, I thought it was hilariously out of place.  Still, the photography is astonishing, the special effects are mostly good, and I thought the ending packed a pretty solid punch.  Also of note for being the film that inspired Michael Myers’ faceless white mask.  Pretty much required viewing for horror fans, and a “recommended, with caution” for everyone else.

RATING: 6/10

TRAILER

They Came Back (Les Revenants) (2004)

Director: Robin Campillo
Writer(s): Campillo & Brigitte Tijou
Starring: Géraldine Pailhas, Jonathan Zaccaï, and Frédéric Pierrot

If you’re thinking about heading into a viewing of They Came Back based on the quotes on the outside of the box, then just save yourself the time and don’t bother watching it.  In fact, if you’re planning a viewing of it as a horror fan, just stay far, far away.  The packaging is misleading, with the studio clearly latching on excitedly to any mention of the word “zombie” in any review for this film, in a desperate attempt to cash in on the current trend.

But those are just the sign of the times.  Zombie movies, once my favorite of all horror subgenres, have become so corporatized and overplayed that I can’t even enjoy them anymore.  Once the walking dead trend caught on so badly that they started being bastardized in mainstream media, being used to sell everything from cars to chain restaurant junk food, I just tuned them out.  I can’t even watch a show like “The Walking Dead”, simply because I’m completely sick of them and all that they have come to represent (though this hasn’t ruined my love of older zombie movies).

This is precisely why I wanted to see They Came Back from the moment I heard about it—it takes the basic principles of a “walking dead” movie, and has the balls to eliminate almost all of the horror elements, instead presenting it as a drama.  That isn’t to say that They Came Back can’t appeal to the horror crowd—there are many haunting scenes, and a palpable sense of dread throughout a majority of its existence—but in order to truly appreciate it, it requires one to go in with an open mind, and quite a bit of patience.

Interestingly, the movie wastes absolutely no time in setting up its story: the opening scene depicts hundreds of normal-looking people walking out of a cemetery.  The corpses in They Came Back aren’t driven by an insatiable hunger for brains, but rather a need to incorporate themselves back into a society that has erased almost all memories of their existence—the jobs and relationships that they left behind have long been filled, and loved ones have finally moved on from mourning their loved ones.  But how is one supposed to react when they find that their loved one isn't dead after all?

Wisely, the reasons why they come back are never explained, or really even explored.  Why they have returned doesn’t matter, especially when there are plenty of other aspects to explore.  Instead, of the thousands of returnees (we do learn that a majority of the returnees are old, and all of them have died within the past ten years), we focus on three: Mathieu, who returns to his widowed wife Rachel; six-year-old Sylvain, who returns to his parents, Isham and Veronique; and elderly Martha returns to her husband, who is the mayor of the unnamed city in which all of these events unfold.

It slowly becomes evident that something isn’t right with the dead, as by nightfall, their calm demeanors change: Martha keeps trying to climb the fence behind her home, forcing the mayor to lock her in the bedroom with him; Sylvain spends hours knocking on the wall, as if trying to catch the attention of someone; and Mathieu sneaks off at night, to partake in mysterious meetings with several other members of the newly-resurrected living.  What could be the cause of their bizarre behavior?

When all is said and done They Came Back is a fascinating failure; it never commits to one single angle of the whole situation, instead biting off little pieces of several different ideas until none of them are ever given a chance to fully develop.  Is it a film about the nature of grief?  Maybe for a couple minutes, until it loses interest in that and moves on to the next idea.  What about a meditation on the nature of loss, and what the dead leave behind?  An interesting parable on mental illness (not surprisingly, the returnees are described as being much slower, both mentally, and physically)?  It’s all of these things, and none.

This becomes the movie’s biggest problem: It doesn’t seem interested in answering the questions that it poses.  It doesn’t even feel the need to end the movie on any kind of usable note, instead opting for a finish so ambiguous, that I wasn’t even clear on what the possibilities were.  This is a shame, because through all of its hits and misses, it held my attention—I was legitimately unclear on where it was headed, and was completely enthralled in all the potential outcomes.

The terrible ending didn’t sour me on the rest of the movie, however, and I’m still recommending it to those that think they might like it.  The truth is, the story is quietly haunting; there are no jump scares, nor is there even a drop of blood, yet the way Campillo still manages to create an unnerving tension, while still balancing it out with scenes of genuine poignancy and sadness, is pretty impressive in and of itself.  Not all of it works, and it does ramble on for a little longer than it needs to, but when it does work, They Came Back is a refreshing, melodramatic take on the “dead returning” theme that fascinates even as it slowly loses steam.    

RECAP: Ignore the packaging, and any review you’ve ever read about this, because contrary to what the studio will have you believe, this is not a “thinking man’s zombie movie”, or anything of the sort.  Sure, the dead have returned to life, but these are simply people that want to return to the way things were before they died, leading to scenes of surprisingly effective emotional resonance.  Unfortunately, some of its forward progress is derailed by a director that seems to be so overwhelmed with the possibilities of the material that he jumps from one theme to another, barely scratching the surface while never digging deep enough to provide us with anything meaningful.  Even despite this, and a terrible ending, They Came Back is an interesting semi-failure that those with an affinity toward slower-moving horror movies or dramas should find intriguing.

RATING: 6.5/10

TRAILER