Return in Red (2007 Video) User Reviews

You got to be kidding

[ehabich · 2/10 · 28 February 2007]

I had to watch this movie in two sittings after falling asleep after the first 45 minutes.

What kept me going were some positive user comments in the IMDb, however, after watching further minutes of this film being wasted on endless shots of walls and doorknobs I was galvanized to write this comment.

What did come across quite well in this picture was the portrayal of dull working class life in America and the depiction of deadbeat contemporary steel manufacturing, which may not be what the film maker intended primarily.

The filmmaker needs to work more on the element of surprise for startling horror, like in "The Descent" for instance.

Extremely slow build up to nothing

[guitarcarl · 4/10 · 11 March 2007]

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.

Hardly worth the viewing

[Griezz · 2/10 · 30 April 2007]

While the general theme of secret experiments conducted on the public may seem appealing to some viewers, "Return in Red" hardly seems to do the idea any credit.

I am not going to argue that the acting or cinematography was sub-par; you don't really need name actors or a million dollar budget do create a great film. However, one thing is essential is a plot that is logical, reasonable and understandable.

There were a few good aspects of the film. The dreariness of the film's visual style blended nicely with the constant sound of the wind in exterior scenes; together, they nicely enhance the feeling of isolation leading to helplessness. However, a film must be about more than setting.

Good films have dialogue; even the old silent films still had character interactions and a plot that you could follow. Sadly, this film often neglected both. Too many scenes had little more than people quietly walking around. There is little about the relationships between people that seem hard pressed to display anything more than wooden sullenness.

Even the supposed theme of government experiments is highly questionable. You never see anything of the experimenters except for a van, some piece of electrical hardware, and a black-clothed gloved arm that grabs people. You never see or hear anything about motivation, except for someone calling-in to a radio talk show at the film's end with a claim about government experiments. While it might be what happened, there is nothing here that justifies that.

There are too many unexplained events as well. One character has a dream that foreshadows events, but is never explained. Is she supposed to be psychic or was it some amazing coincidence? The two people at the end supposed to be immune to the experiment's effects? Nothing is explained.

Given the lack of information, the lack of character dialogue, and the lack of reasonable explanations of motives, I'd have to say that this film generally also lacks any value.

insomniacs rejoice

[bugaboo-7 · 1/10 · 23 February 2007]

Apparently the US government has an old ford van that it has equipped with a sound wave machine they salvaged from Lost In Space and are testing the effects of certain frequencies on an unwitting rural towns.

Talk about a snoozer. This film has enough in your face tedium to bring down a cape buffalo. I spent as much time watching the counter as I did the movie. (57 minutes elapse before anything interesting happens) It even moved slowly when I was fast forwarding through the volumes of dead time.

The bad acting and pointless scenes plod along to a banal conclusion without even a whiff of explanation, plot or character development. And the absence of anything resembling good dialog completes the disaster.

A couple of decent gore effects at the end are far too little, way too late.

This one has all the suspense of watching icicles melt.

Not what I expected at all... awful movie.

[actualstar · 1/10 · 18 October 2007]

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.

how about a concise summation?

[imizrahi2002 · 10 April 2007]

50s/60s, anachronistic, low budget style horror film. humans are the monsters. most younger(and enough older)horror film fans will find this disappointing/boring... i think people who praised it did so b/c they're from the same part of the world where it was filmed... d-d-d-d-d dat's all folks... i just learned, after trying to submit the above, that the IMDb folk require 10 lines of text, using no 'junk words'. what are junk words? and that doesn't make my summary 'concise', does it? seriously...there's not a whole lot more to say about this film... and i'm trying to do potential viewers a service. i hope the IMDb personnel understand this... personally, i enjoyed the mood that the setting -- backwoods America -- lent to the overall effect. i guess that's 10 lines...

Made me think of Chainsaw Massacre

[Rabh17 · 5/10 · 20 February 2007]

I give it a half n half because despite the great acting and atmospherics, I kinda felt put off. I mean, that rural town and it's people were NICE. There were no bad people who you felt should "Get whacked". No Philandering husband. No venal prostitutes. No crooked sheriff. Just hardworking, ordinary likable folks. So the ending just left me angry and unhappy and puzzled.

If you like monsters or monstrous people and events like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, you may like this. But if you don't like hopeless secret governmental conspiracy plots, the movie may leave you with a bad taste.

This movie is truly a waste of time.

[evilfiendfromplanet9 · 1/10 · 19 November 2007]

This movie is over 100 minutes of boring. Almost nothing happens for the first hour and the viewer is basically treated to "hey, here's life in a small town where people don't do cell phones, internet, or cable TV, isn't that neat?"

The actors aren't bad, but they can't overcome a serious lack of script or story telling. It's literally like a camera rolling through a small scenic town for an hour. Oh yeah, there's a slightly spooky van driving through town that nobody seems to notice or care about except for a couple of people. But honestly, nothing really happens and after an hour and ten minutes of this you'll start to realize that no matter how cool the ending could possibly be, it can't justify the slow, agonizing pace of the film. The basic story could be told, even with all the slow building tension you'd ever want, inside of 35 to 40 minutes. There's just not enough meat to the script as it was put onto film to justify an hour and forty minute long movie. It fell apart. I don't bore easily, but I almost couldn't get through this plodding piece of ca-ca. And now, I'm going back to the video store and demanding my money back. And I will make sure to remember never to watch another Tyler Tharpe film ever again, if I can. Unless someone can promise me he's improved his editing skills immensely.

Return in Red spawns a new film genre: "dullard horror"

[crowntown-1 · 3/10 · 11 April 2007]

Nobody screams. Nobody calls the police. A 10-year-old boy stares agape on one side of a door while his mother repeatedly smashes her head into the other side, and does nothing. It takes the decimation of an entire factory staff to make the heavy chick get up off her duff to find out what's going on. Then she moves at a glacial pace through the human wreckage looking for the perp, rather than trying to get the hell outta there.

To its credit, the film manages to capture the repetitive, dull routine of a one-horse town in winter quite effectively. Some of the (amateur) acting is actually quite good at certain points, while being just awful in others.

The biggest problem with the film is that the plot is void of motivation. WHY was the entity that was doing what it was doing, doing it? What did it achieve? Or did it fail? All these questions are left unanswered, and the voice-over news commentary at the end, tacked on as a kind of explanatory coda, just doesn't work as a denouement.

Could have been much better. But it is what it is, esoteric title and all.

Small town America...victim of experimentation.

[michaelRokeefe · 3/10 · 24 March 2007]

This Tyler Tharpe Sci-Fi flick flat-lines rapidly in accordance with the story not making much sense and dragging on and on. RETURN IN RED is a little-known military test classification for serious and fatal experiment results. Gloom and doom hangs over a small rural town that has no stop lights, shopping mall, cable TV...let alone Internet service. The residents unknowingly are guinea pigs in an experiment where electromagnetic frequencies play havoc on the human brain. This is a strange mesh of Sci-Fi and horror. One question...what in the hell was the purpose of the 'factory'? It appeared to just be a garage producing or processing nothing. Besides having an irritating whistle it was the site of a bloody gore-fest. Starring: J.J. Huckin, Amy Paliganoff, Michael Ray Reed and Becky Niccum.

Is it a particle? Or a Wave?

[zor_prime · 4/10 · 13 April 2007]

...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.

This One is Worth Checking Out!

[atomic_age57 · 8/10 · 7 February 2007]

This is the way horror oughta be! Reminiscent of the style of horror movies done in the early 1970s such as the original "The Hills Have Eyes", this eerie, disturbingly-realistic portrait of a secret government experiment performed on an average small American town and its unwitting townsfolk will have you peering out your window at any suspicious vehicle lurking about. With a relatively unknown cast and an obvious shoestring budget, the director of this movie knows what it takes to creatively construct a sinister atmosphere within an everyday, common setting and hold your attention. The acting is well above-average for such an inexperienced cast and they are able to pull their roles off most convincingly. Shot in northern Indiana, the bleak winter landscapes add an unsettling feel to the overall mood. At the risk of letting any spoilers out of the bag, let's just say I was mesmerized throughout the first 3/4 of the film and found myself jumping at every little noise. While the last 1/4 of the movie does end up relying on cheap special effects, the majority of the film is very creepy and sure to satisfy most sci-fi/horror buffs. 8 stars.

slow steady build to good effect, worth finding

[HEFILM · 7/10 · 14 February 2007]

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.

Terrible even by direct-to-video standards.

[the_darnn · 1/10 · 5 April 2009]

I honestly can't think of anything more boring than this movie. Literally. Nothing comes to mind. I can't stress this enough.

It's supposed to be a horror movie. But nothing happens. There's an ominous van that goes around with a radar dish poking out of it, shooting rays at people. One woman gets blasted with them, and proceeds to... sleep in all day. Then, once fifty five minutes of the movie have passed and nothing aside from the boring, boring life of a small town was shown, the woman beings to bang her head against the wall. Color me terrified.

Choice bits of dialogue:

"Did you take half of my super sandwich?" "What sandwich?"

"So you're saying a strange humming knocked out your TV? What did it sound like?" "Hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!"

Really ... one of the comments that I read said disregard the bad acting, the poor camera work, the fact that there is no "main" character, etc

[drobatin-1 · 7 May 2009]

How about just the fact that this movie simply sucked. The writers seemed to have run out of mundane crap for the main character do, so they killed him off. It was like watching "Slackers" except that none of the characters were interesting at all. And the idea that you don't "understand" the film or don't "appreciate" character set up, development, etc is a load of shite. None of the characters were developed and the most interesting one was a guy who spent most of his time on camera asleep. As for the sound effects that "guided" the film as one jaggoff mentioned, please ... just because it was an actual character in the movie (the personification of the bad guys) didn't mean that it was a good performance either. I have to admit I was curious to see what an indie scifi/horror could do, but without ANY good acting, it's tough to see any redeemable qualities.

Massive Garbage

[chrisdl-67916 · 1/10 · 14 May 2015]

If there were an option to give a mark below zero on this particular film,I would. I would literally rather have a hippopotamus defecate down my throat while receiving 1000 paper cuts on my scrotum than sit through 1 minute of watching this sorry excuse of a film again. I watched this film in its entirety hoping to see some sort of point or hope of redemption,however the only redemption is that which the director should seek after airing this piece of garbage. From the 1st minute to last of this film,I believe the concept of positivity and hope died in me. Thank you for pushing me closer to suicide. There are scenes in this film that aren't even properly addressed and the viewer is left to attempt at understanding what went on. It's simple...what went on was a disgrace to the film industry as well as nearly 2 hrs of one's life that one will never get back.

It's Genius When you can Make a Creepy Film Using only Imagination!

[alienrobotmonkey · 8/10 · 23 March 2007]

This movie is one i think is rare, it does what most big Hollywood films won't dare to do, and that's implement the gobernment in a scheme to use invisible waves through technology to induce or disrupt certain mental states. If you didn't know the film was made in 2007, you'd think this was a 70's, early 80's film because of the acting style, dialog, timing, film grain, director of photography's style, and it pulls it off flawlessly. The movie isn't action packed, and gore in every other scene, but it is nice and creepy! This is the new breed of zombie films, one where the zombies are a result of a government conspiracy to control and manipulate consciousness of the brain in order to...whatever...

The film was shot on a shoestring budget, and I think is highly under rated, and if you're not a b-rate, cheesy, horror flick fan, this movie isn't for you.

If your a fan of the zombie film genre, check it out...what's worse than becoming a zombie, not by a bite, but by sound-waves, and going nuts and killing everything, and everyone in site, and not remembering a damn thing when you are de-zombiphied! Like they say in the dark closets of Hollywood, "Film makers use lies to tell the truth" Check it out!

I liked it

[dadooronron · 7/10 · 13 December 2007]

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.

Both the film and motive are mysterious and enigmatic

[udar55 · 8/10 · 11 October 2014]

A mysterious white van travels through a small Indiana town and at night it blasts residents with high frequency sound waves that make some residents go crazy. Catching onto the strange things happening are TV repairman Bodecker (J.J. Huckin) and factory worker Katie (Amy Paliganoff), who is seemingly immune to the blasts. Tharpe's second feature film is a decidedly measured dose of small town paranoia that reminds me of Romero's THE CRAZIES (1973). One of the great things about the film is the viewer is never privy to who is behind these small town high frequency attacks. Opening and closing bits imply the U.S. government, but viewers are never given answers. That along with some genuine surprises and a few really creepy scenes made this enjoyable for me. It is very leisurely paced. So much so that Ti West would scream, "Pick up the pace!" Once again, Tharpe captures a small Midwestern town perfectly. There are also some nice recurring shot motifs going on.

Creepiest movie I've seen in a long time

[clamrock · 8/10 · 12 December 2007]

I watched this movie this weekend and I have to say - I loved it.

This movie is about a secret government experiment preformed on unsuspecting people in a small town. The "government" is portrayed as an unassuming white van. When the "government" strikes the van slowly rolls open the side door & we can see some sort of antenna with lights on it. For me - this is the best kind of bad guy - the one that I make up in my imagination. Sure the movie could have shown us the same government types we see in every movie - either suits or military jump suits - but that would be boring.

At times the pace of this movie reminded me of "Eraserhead" - with some awkward pauses and short dialog. This enhanced the feel of the small town and slow pace of folks there. What better place to play god? Overall the locations for the movie were interesting and believable. A great part in the movie was the dialog between the old man and Bodecker talking about his TV reception and the humming noise.

The movie had just enough gore in it for me - I was not expecting the Hilo to do THAT! The movie ends how most secret government experiments done on the unwilling American people likely end - with no answers for the victims.

Not quite sure what to say. :-/

[oldkingsol · 8 October 2011]

The actors were so likable in this, I feel bad saying anything negative about it, but yet this really was a rather dull movie. It's really not for anyone who is looking to be entertained, though it is somewhat interesting from the perspective of someone wanting to study the film-making process. The reason for this is that the process is pretty obvious, here - in truly terrific filmmaking, you can't tell what's going on "behind the scenes", so to speak - i.e., casting, special effects, acting... But with this, there really isn't any way to forget that it's a movie and get lost in the story.

Still, it's interesting enough for me, but I tend to be able to enjoy things most people wouldn't waste toilet paper on. So I can't recommend this for most folks. Look up some previews and clips on YouTube or some such, and just from that you should be able to tell if it's your type of thing or not, as the entire film is made with pretty much the same pacing and tone the whole way through (slow and dull).

I must admit, however, the guy who was the lead actor (at least for a time) was pretty cute, and not too bad at it, either. Hope to see more of him. :-)

Return for refund

[sebpopcorn · 22 October 2013]

A creepy van hangs around an isolated community pointing a radar dish out at them to send them mad. I liked the premise but for the first 60 minutes nothing more exciting happens than an elderly gentleman having his television aerial adjusted. In the meantime people trudge back and forth from a factory lit like something from a Dickens novel.

I was disappointed because at first this movie looks like it's going to be pretty good but you're waiting and waiting for something to happen but it doesn't until the last ten minutes. The end does however feature a hilariously bad effect involving a forklift and what looks like a blow-up doll that may raise a chuckle. I was also amused by the newspaper headline which read "some people found dead in local factory". That's another scoop for the daily unspecific.

This could have been a great movie but the preoccupation with dimly lit factories, bankrupt coffee shops and shift patterns didn't do it for me.