Thursday 13 June 2013

The Returned


British horror, like British crime, has an honourable tradition, but recent offerings have been stodgy and disappointing and other countries have produced far better examples of the genres.  This French tale has people who supposedly died in a bus crash returning from the dead after years, without having aged at all.  A truly spooky premise and one that we wonder how they can possibly deliver on without resorting to 'Twin Peaks' style flights of fancy.  So far, though, it's more reminiscent of 'Solaris'.  Relatives are overjoyed, or puzzled, driven insane, or terrified at having loved ones they thought dead return to life as though nothing had happened.  Unsurprisingly.

There are no zombies: they all look healthy, and no vampyric tendencies, just extraordinary hunger.  The mountain village is quiet, with a dodgy electricity supply and an air of loss and menace.  What are their secrets?  Doubtless the living have as many as the 'dead', and so far the only violence to materialise has been very human.  The most intriguing and adult horror, with a dash of black humour, in a long time.

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