Review of To Return (1982) by James H — 26 Aug 2009

I went into this having literally no idea what the movie was about, which sounds great in concept but I wonder if I would have enjoyed it more with some sense of what to expect. I found the opening sequence to be pretty dull and I thought it was going to be a drag, but once the inciting incident hit I saw the potential for this to go in interesting directions.

Unfortunately I found the film to be a little slow, and I felt like a lot of things were set up and then nothing became of them: where were all the thriller elements of hiding a body? what of the relationship with the film maker? what about the daughter feeling bad about murder? So much stuff was set up and then just ignored.

That was kinda the problem with the movie really. It had all these different strands of story going on and I never really felt like they came together in a way that maximized their impact.

The saving grace is the story involving the ghost of the Mother, because I instantly loved the woman playing her. She was just so warm looking, like the kinda person you would want to make you soup on a cold day or something.

Maybe if you dig this style of film more then you would appreciate it more than I have, but I couldn't help but feel this film could have been tighter, funnier, more thrilling, just more impactful than the slow, melodramatic film it is. It's not terrible by any means, it has "worthy" written all over it, I just wasn't blown away by it.