Return in Red

A well made,shot on film, rurally made, in the best sense, sci fi horror, conspiracy movie. It moves at a pace that makes the shocks when they come quite effective, though the slow build may at times be a bit tedious the pay off it worth it. The music and sound work are very important, there are good twists and a powerful directness to the ending. Sound especially! The themes of the movie obviously calls for good sound work. The pace is deliberate, seems like you can't escape from certain scenes and you know something bad is going to happen.

Has the feel of a film like "RABID." The locations and acting are totally convincing and really put you in the small town under a strange form of assault. Has the feel also of BREAKFAST AT THE MANCHESTER MORGUE. Though this is not a gore fest.

Those who want everything explained will be left cold, but the film makes sense within it's own logic. The isolation feel of the movie is pretty powerful and this is creepy disturbing stuff. There is gore and it's well done but that's a small element to the film.

Very effective little movie, occasionally just a bit dullish in the middle, but worth a look for any serious fan of the genre, and some of it will linger with you long after it's over.

...Whichever you believe it is, the light radiating from my TV while watching this movie was extremely SSSSLLLLLLOOOOOOOOW moving! ...Or maybe it was just the movie itself... Though it was not a terrible movie.

I had time to go and browse Websites to review what I remember about the electromagnetic spectrum trying to guess which wavelengths were being used in this story. And while I did that and checked e-mail, I didn't feel that I had missed anything at all in the film. There were probably about 14 minutes of critical scenes and the rest is pretty much build-up, so feel free to catch up on bills or do your taxes throughout this one.

For some reason, I enjoyed the acting of some of the characters. The two younger male leads seemed to be very genuine, and I don't think the factory foreman even knew he was in a movie and may have been operating a real machine shop the whole time. In fact, there was a very real feeling to the representation of an entire small community revolving around the work life at a single large industrial/factory work type employer. Maybe this is why whoever perpetrated this experiment chose this town--other than whatever the factory produced, no one in America would miss anyone or anything in this town if it disappeared one day.

Many parts of this film reminded me of the almost farcical, terrible attempt at bat zombie-ism "The Roost". In fact, they could have been filmed on the same location. Though in contrast to the truly terrible "The Roost", this film had a lot better cinematic, and pseudo-scientific value. Probably the scariest element of the film overall was the relationship between the young child (who even though the weather was cold, did not seem to go to school) and his single mother *shudder*.

Overall, I think they could have ramped up the zombie-factor of the film. Though there isn't really any analog to traditional zombie genre concepts, this movie could have gone that way. I mean, everybody loves a good zombie film, right? I don't think I'd want to ever watch it again, but some of the actors (or maybe it was just the characters) were nice enough that it wouldn't be terrible (or unbelievable) meeting them in Rural Indiana. If anything, this film might urge you to evaluate your life, and the value and meaning of life itself--because it's obviously NOT meant for us to work 1st, 2nd, and 3rd shifts day in and day out with NO hope of a better waking life.

I got a kick out of the dark factory scenes. I worked in factories when I was young and they were all lit up, but they felt as dark as the one here. My favorite role, the old guy with TV problems; freakiest role, the mom who can't be reached; most endearing role, the daughter of the old guy; most sympathetic role, the guy who has to bum rides to his job. I thought the other actors were good too. Anyone who's been a grunt will recognize the perennially angry cigarette-smoking foreman. The deleted portions included on the DVD were lively and some of them added to the story and made me wish they'd been included in the movie. A couple things didn't make sense to me, but neither did the fact that I nearly got creamed by a tow truck that drove onto the sidewalk while I was walking home from work tonight. Moody, weird, tells a story ... I liked it.

A cast of very real ordinary people do much to overcome an underdeveloped and poorly written script. Even though the cast tries hard to make lemonade out of lemons the story ultimately sours. Several of the characters show tremendous potential and there were relationships that could have been developed to success, why the writer and director went the way they did is hard to understand. A few better plot choices possibly could have allowed us to see into a realistic view of rural America. A really interesting scene between a boy and his mother had me on the edge of my seat, but it was never really resolved. The scene built powerfully and then ended with a startling grab in a dark field. The story did that several times, start moving with some intensity and then crash into a cheap thrill. The climax wonders aimlessly through poorly arranged gore vignettes. By showing to much to fast and the lack of budget for decent visual effects what little credibility the cast had built up was wasted. I was reminded of "The Blair Witch Project" in which the director relied on talented actors to build suspense and mystery. It remains one of the scarcest and successful independent horror films ever made and not a dime was spent on fake blood and rubber masks. I still wonder if the actors could have done much better if the director and writer had gotten out of the way here. In the end the movie make no effort to resolve at all. The plot resolves no more in the end than it is explained by a corny narration in the first moments of the movie. If you are really looking for a good independent horror film let me suggest "Salvage" instead. Performances by Chris Ferry and Lauren Currie Lewis will knock your socks off.

This movie wasn't anything like the previews made it out to be. The acting was worse than a high school play. There was very little flow to the movie, with the main characters scattered, not really knowing where the plot was getting. It's sad, you couldn't even tell what era this movie was taking place in. 1980's? 1990's? We never find out where this movie is going, let alone the ending leaves you hanging. Where it leaves you hanging, I couldn't figure out either. Who were the people in the mysterious van? I have to assume the government, although we never see anyone.

The only thing we CAN do with this piece of crap movie is assume.

I will never get that hour and a half of my time back. What a waste.