They Came Back (2004)

Good concept, poorly executed.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

If you like zombies, then you must certainly find 70 million of them to be a real delight. In fact, in the town in this film, 13,000 returned from the dead.But, you will be disappointed in the fact that there is no blood or gore, no eating of brains. This is just what the French do best - give us a film that makes us think for 103 minutes.Yes, they have come back, but they marched peacefully into town. They looked as if they were just buried yesterday, even though some had bee gone for 10 years. Mostly old, there were some infants and in one of the three families featured, a six-year-old.It is curious that the French do not get upset; they proceed to develop plans to temporarily resettle the zombies while they learn their identities and check them out medically. They, of course, make plans to repatriate them to their families and jobs and make provisions for assistance - most are over 60, as you would expect.But, the film focuses on three families: one who lost a six-year-old four years ago, one whose wife lost her husband, and one elderly couple reunited. All those questions of how you deal with loved ones returning after you have already grieved keep popping through your mind. Sometimes, in the case of the parents and child, there are different responses.The film does not explore why they came back, and why they suddenly leave again. It is more concerned with how people deal with death. It is a thoughtful film that really keeps your attention, even though some complain about its slowness. Well, of course it is slow, it is a film about zombies.

There are 2 questions that frustrated me with this movie but I'm not going to tell you what they are because it might spoil it for you and they may not ever occur or matter to you. That said, it was an interesting movie conceptually.As you well know, the dead returning in movies is nothing new. But the approach in Revenants is uncommon in that it does not use a lot of special effects or make up. Hopefully this bit of news will not turn you off if you love effects (as I do), but instead, will intrigue you into checking it out. The principal focus of the movie is how to re-integrate the "dearly returned" back into society and the effect on family and friends. Give this some thought. Who knows, a similar situation may occur in real life one day (heh! heh! heh!).Despite my 2 unanswered questions, the idea and focus of the movie was intriguing enough to keep me interested from beginning to end. Ironically, in it's simplistic delivery (not exploring this captivating idea in more depth; my 2 questions included) it is also clever -I think- in that it does MORE with LESS. For example, in this movie the undead are subtly creepy rather than outright frightening or threatening like most movies of this genre. They don't make you want to run away, just "a little uneasy".Bottom line folks, is that Les Revenants is worth seeing even if 2 or 3 questions nag at you. I give it 6 stars out of 10 for an "above average". And now it's time for ME to depart -UNTIL I RETURN, of course. Love, Boloxxxi.

I rented this movie expecting an "avant-zombie" film, and ended up with a healthy dose of philosophical inquiry. The premise is the return of thousands of newly dead residents to a small French town, and the logistical problems involved with having to make room for them. Some return to their previous jobs, relationships, and families, while the strays are housed and studied in a barracks type hospital. Everything about the "zombies" seem to suggest that they are capable of living relatively normal lives, except for their strange activity at night, surplus of energy, and lower body temperatures. Everything except their complete lack of emotion and spontaneous thought. Instead they rely heavily on past memories and mimicked speech in order to function. As the film approaches its end, those living members who have welcomed their dead relatives back are left empty and confused. Eventually, the undead simply escape to tunnels, are shot down, or simply vanish, leaving the viewer, as well as the characters in the movie wanting for more. My feeling about this film is that it is trying to make the statement that "bodies" themselves are not us. Though "they came back" they really did not come back. That is- the soul or the essence that makes someone who they are is not simply the body, but something far more, and that never came back.

The horror... the horror!No, the movie's nothing frightening, but in fact, it bored me to tears. You can literally take a leak, go to the snack bar, have a smoke, and return to the theatre, missing absolutely nothing. Half the time I was wondering whether something remotely interesting will crop up midway to quicken the pace, but I was dead wrong. The movie is meant to be painfully and excruciatingly slow, for it to bring forth its philosophy about life and death, and its abstract ideas about existentialism.The big question presented, though it is hardly ever gonna come true anyway, is how will society react if the dead suddenly became alive again? The issues that are posed, from housing to employment to health care and even human rights (!), are those that are any government's nightmare. The movie begins with stoned elderly folks walking, and walking, and walking some more when the opening credits rolled, until it is said that the dead are walking the earth, and are quickly scrambled to makeshift holding areas while awaiting the relatives to come claim them, and for everyone else to try and make sense of this phenomenon.Perhaps Heaven is getting crowded, or Hell has frozen over, that the departed need to return to the land of the living. They do not crave the blood of man, but rather, are finding ways to integrate back into society. Herein lies the opportunity for philosophy that is unappreciated by myself. There are different viewpoints presented via various characters, but all that is worth recalling, is that the dead are not pleased to be alive, and those alive are absolutely clueless as to what to do next. Bottom line is, let sleeping dogs lie.One thing's for sure, I don't really like abstract zombies. Give me those that crave for flesh and blood anytime!