I can honestly say I enjoyed this movie. It was clearly made on a very small budget and upon finding out it was only $7000 I was actually more impressed than before. People don't often understand where the budget tends to go and don't know much about the inner workings of how movies are really made. Space rentals, catering, actors, crew members, costumes, makeup artists, equipment, extras, ad spots, cgi, posters/promotional materials, etc all have to be bought and paid for with that budget. For a movie to be made with only $7000 and still be pretty darn good is a feat in and of itself.
This movie has great bones, the story was compelling and hooked me pretty early on. The cgi was better than some syfy channel productions with millions in budget. The acting was ok across the board, some were better than others but it was forgivable because the whole movie was very interesting. And the makeup for the alien woman was really quite neat! Heck, I would cosplay it.
I have seen a lot, and I mean A LOT, of outright terrible, nauseatingly bad, horrendous, "who even funded this?", "people had to okay this and nobody said this is trash, utter trash.", type movies (I really do mean a lot), and Returned was NOT one of those movies. I say give credit where credit is due and applaud the whole cast and crew for doing a great job with what they had to work with. With a bigger budget behind this film I bet it would turn out better than the mediocre mess that was Mortal Engines.
I appreciate and enjoy this movie for what it was and you can tell the cast enjoyed making it as well. All in all, engaging story, decent cgi considering the shoestring budget, mostly good acting (I mean really, everyone in the cast was better than Kristen Stewart), and well edited/put together. 6/10
