Return, The

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Entertainment Weekly Gregory Kirshling

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

Variety Dennis Harvey

Forgettable PG-13 pic will particularly strike fans of harder-edged recent horror pix as much ado about not much.

Empire James Dyer

A large step backwards for a promising director and far from the return we'd been hoping for.

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.

Austin Chronicle Steve Davis

A welcome antidote to most of the crap that for passes today for horror and other supernaturally themed movies.

The New York Times Jeannette Catsoulis

You may see scarier movies this year, but none so redolent of decomposition.

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.

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."

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.

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.

Chicago Reader Staff (not credited)

A soporific ghost story.

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.