Movies
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Wide Releases
Now In Theaters
76
(500) Days of Summer
49
2012
60
9
17
All About Steve
37
Amelia
53
Astro Boy
70
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
52
Blind Side
47
Box, The
61
Capitalism: A Love Story
55
Christmas Carol, A
43
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
66
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
23
Couples Retreat
39
Fame
30
Final Destination, The
34
Fourth Kind, The
41
G-Force
46
Halloween II
73
Hangover, The
78
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
66
Informant!, The
69
Inglourious Basterds
58
Invention of Lying, The
47
Jennifer's Body
66
Julie & Julia
34
Law Abiding Citizen
54
Men Who Stare At Goats, The
67
Michael Jackson's This Is It
28
Pandorum
58
Pirate Radio
39
Planet 51
30
Saw VI
53
Shorts
33
Stepfather, The
45
Surrogates
46
Twilight Saga: New Moon, The
71
Where the Wild Things Are
67
Whip It
28
Whiteout
73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Limited Releases
Now In Theaters
58
(Untitled)
96
35 Shots of Rum![]()
56
Adam
39
Adventures of Power
66
Afterschool
73
Amreeka
49
Antichrist
76
Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86
Beaches of Agnes, The![]()
71
Big Fan
65
Black Dynamite
76
Bliss
26
Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
44
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81
Bright Star![]()
76
Broken Embraces
70
Bronson
62
Cloud 9
65
Coco Before Chanel
69
Cold Souls
60
Collapse
82
Cove, The![]()
75
Crude
82
Damned United, The![]()
53
Dare
50
Defamation
67
Departures
70
Earth Days
85
Education, An![]()
55
Endgame
88
Fantastic Mr. Fox![]()
31
Fix
49
Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80
Food, Inc.
xx
From Mexico with Love
28
Gentlemen Broncos
72
Good Hair
89
Goodbye Solo![]()
63
Horse Boy, The
74
House of the Devil, The
xx
How to Seduce Difficult Women
26
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
70
It Might Get Loud
46
Killing Kasztner
43
Little Traitor, The
34
Looking for Palladin
80
Lorna's Silence
46
Love Hurts
84
Maid, The![]()
45
Mammoth
75
Messenger, The
55
Missing Person, The
59
More Than a Game
34
Motherhood
62
My One and Only
48
New York, I Love You
66
No Impact Man
26
Oh My God
68
Paranormal Activity
68
Paris
79
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
73
Red Cliff
69
September Issue, The
79
Serious Man, A
65
Skin
41
Splinterheads
42
Staten Island
50
Stoning of Soraya M., The
58
Storm
82
Sun, The![]()
49
Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon
73
That Evening Sun
61
Trucker
49
Turning Green
83
U2 3D![]()
45
Uncertainty
67
Visual Acoustics
32
War on Kids
67
Way We Get By, The
65
Wedding Song, The
xx
White on Rice
59
William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
74
Woman in Berlin, A
43
Women in Trouble
69
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Return, The

Generally unfavorable reviews
Based on 17 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 23 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama | Suspense/Thriller
Written by: Adam Sussman
Directed by: Asif Kapadia
Release Date:
Theatrical: November 10, 2006
DVD: February 27, 2007
Running Time: 85 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for violence, terror and disturbing images
Starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, Peter O'Brien, Adam Scott, Kate Beahan, and Sam Shepard
Sarah Michelle Gellar stars as Joanna Mills, a tough young Midwesterner determined to learn the truth behind the increasingly terrifying supernatural visions that have been haunting her. (Rogue Pictures)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: The Warrior
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
It's more haunting than it has any right to be, thanks to its love of long, lonesome highways and the way the violence of the past bleeds into the present.
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
The minimalist style keeps the suspense warm. The movie is unusual among teen horror flicks in that it largely avoids the usual cheap thrills and bursts of scare music. Instead, it carefully repeats isolated images and sound bites until they take on a shivery power.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
London-born director Asif Kapadia's second feature, following 2001's critically acclaimed "The Warrior," is a slow, low-key supernatural thriller whose story is too slender to justify its feature-length running time.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Sam Adams
As for Gellar, she seems game but glum, treading water in a role that represses her comic talents and leaves her little to do but suffer in silence.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Sam Adams
As for Gellar, she seems game but glum, treading water in a role that represses her comic talents and leaves her little to do but suffer in silence.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Gregory Kirshling
Mellow -- nay, snoozy -- atmospherics trump actual scares, and it makes almost zero sense.
Read Full Review >Variety Dennis Harvey
Forgettable PG-13 pic will particularly strike fans of harder-edged recent horror pix as much ado about not much.
Read Full Review >Empire James Dyer
A large step backwards for a promising director and far from the return we'd been hoping for.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck
While Adam Sussman's screenplay can be admired for its emphasis on subtle atmospherics rather than cheap scares, it is a gimmicky slog of an affair that lacks narrative coherence or strong focus.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Steve Davis
A welcome antidote to most of the crap that for passes today for horror and other supernaturally themed movies.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Jeannette Catsoulis
You may see scarier movies this year, but none so redolent of decomposition.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
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.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jason Anderson
Sarah Michelle Gellar is not faring well as a horror-movie scream queen. Gone are the attitude, wit and verve she used to routinely display in the title role of TV's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
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.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Luke Y. Thompson
The Return gets this year's award for most misleading poster, with its image of an empty-eyed, gray-skinned zombie/ghost that appears nowhere in the movie. You might, however, feel a little empty-eyed and zombie-like yourself after emerging from this languid story.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub
At the heart of The Return is a murder that even the most bumbling homicide investigator could have solved in about 12 seconds.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.3 (out of 10) based on 23 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Redlight gave it a3:
an absolute mess. striving to be this eerie, psychological thriller, the film instead winds up being a dull, vague disaster. one day, i hope Sarah Michelle Gellar will make a movie worthy of her talents. but with this and the grudge 2, just now it looks like she'll be the first one to sign up for the Buffy: 10 Years On tv series if it ever materialized.
Riren gave it a4:
The first half is like a rejected draft of a Silent Hill movie, while the second is a disappointingly illogical explanation for the first. Even the soundtrack wants more action out of the characters than they are willing to provide, and the acting is far too dull for all the shadows and shaky camera tricks to hide. The lack of thrills and content isn't made up for by the languishing suspense and bursts of ill-fitting violence. The Return is only recommended to horror/thriller lovers who want another odd plot to unravel in their spare time.
JP Paxton gave it a1:
I think a round of applause is in order for whoever pieced together the trailer for Rogue Pictures’ latest release, ‘The Return’. I myself, along with everyone else have been duped into believing it is in fact a horror film. On the contrary though, its actually a supernatural thriller. Too bad it is not the least bit thrilling.
[Anonymous] gave it a10:
Has EVERYTHING a horror movie should have. Great music, great plot, great acting, great characters, great suspence, great twits. Literally I could not have asked for more. I promise you will walk out with the same bone chilling joy that i did. The satisfaction after the conclusion is very strong and very obvious amoung the audience.
Tom W. gave it a10:
I was actually suprised because this movie really scared me. I did not know that it would be so terrifying and jolting. I was very impressed by the acting and would advise you to put it near the top of your much watch list. Good, Clean, almost-R fun. Not just another teen thriller. A overall impressing horror film, leaving a serious imprint on the director's carrer.
Roger P. gave it a7:
Better than most horror films. Starts out amazing and finished a bit weak. The plot twitst and spooky scares make this a partically over exageratted bone chilling PG 13 flick. Most PG 13 horror movies are not this good. The ending however, keeps it from making the impact of a classic.
