The Return: Critic Reviews

Mellow -- nay, snoozy -- atmospherics trump actual scares, and it makes almost zero sense.

The horror movie workhorse Sarah Michelle Gellar is back to chill us with The Return, a rote thriller with an intriguingly frenetic shooting style.

As B-level suspensers go, though, The Return isn't actively awful -- just slow and cursed with a lead who acts with her T-shirt.

Since Adam Sussman's script is as lazy as Asif Kapadia's direction is disjointed, nothing ever makes sense, even after the anticlimatic explanation is revealed. Not even Gellar can work up any interest in Joanna's fate.

Time-killer chiller reps an undistinguished U.S. debut for U.K. helmer Asif Kapadia, though the undernourished script may be most at fault.

Gellar, who isn't bad with comedy, can't do drama, even in the chocolate-colored hair she wears this time.

A simple ghost story that is, for all its faults, elegantly told, and compellingly acted.

Many elements of The Return are quite sophisticated as past and present converge and Joanna's pursuer catches her scent. It's too bad that the plot takes us into irrationality, past the point of no return.

Gellar's thousand-yard stare and somnambulant screen presence have become a serious drag.

This murky psychological horror effort is not likely to inspire a return.

The Return universally fails to establish any sense of reality, which makes it hard to register when Joanna's world starts falling apart.

Built from spare parts left over by American remakes of Japanese copies of "Ringu", "The Return" is at least two steps removed from the first generation copy.

It's just a dull, mediocre, and forgettable supernatural drama with wooden performances from its entire cast...

Too polished to be truly creepy, The Return has more than enough atmosphere to keep you watching - but nowhere near enough mystery.

The Return is a slow burn that's often way too slow, feeling stretched to meet a running time that's still under 90 minutes.

a low point in the on-going battle to scare U.S. teens from their allowances

Austerely directed but shamelessly dry, uneventful and derivative.

Stick to vampires, Buffy.

[The Return] isn't creepy enough to really work properly and there's an over-reliance on sudden soundtrack noises in place of actual scares.