Here's (yet another) obscure and low-budgeted early 80's Sci-Fi movie about alien invasion in a remote little South-Western redneck town. Hooray! No, seriously, I'm not being sarcastic. I love this stuff and "The Return" particularly caught my attention because of its director and the names involved in the cast. Greydon Clark is a sadly overlooked genre director who made some really diverge films, like the slasher parody "Wacko" and the sleazy devil-worshiping flick "Satan's Cheerleaders". Around at the same time he did "The Return", Greydon Clark also directed the slightly better and much more exciting "Without Warning"; which actually can be considered as a primitive but clever forerunner to "Predator". The cast list of "The Return" is more than impressive, at least if you're a sucker for B-movie heroes and heroines. Jan-Michael Vincent, back when he was still rebelliously handsome and relatively sober, forms a wonderful team with the unearthly cute Cybill Shepherd from "The Last Picture Show" and "Taxi Driver". The supportive cast is even better, as it features names like Martin Landau, Raymond Burr, Neville Brand and Vincent Schiavelli! With all these names involved, I couldn't care less if the rating is only a miserable 2.3 out of ten.
Now, "The Return" may be a bad film in the end, but it's definitely more ambitious and profound than its clumsy elaboration suggests. Personally, I like to believe that Greydon Clark originally intended for his film to be far more horror-orientated, but that the screenplay was "softened" in favor to cash in on some contemporary really popular family/fantasy themed Sci-Fi classics, like "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "Star Wars". The only true horror elements that remained are a crazed hillbilly yokel killing to endorse his extraterrestrial masters and good old-fashioned cattle mutilation. Lots and lots of cattle mutilation! Twenty-five years ago, two young children witnessed a spaceship passing over a small little town in New Mexico. Nobody believed them but now the little town's area causes awkward strange satellite measuring and plenty of dead cow carcasses are floating down the rivers. Jennifer Kramer travels to Little Creek to investigate and teams up with the skeptical deputy Wayne, much against the will of the hostile cattle breeders who are clearly very fond of their cows. This is illustrated through incredibly banal dialogs like: "When I see the mutilated cadavers of my daddy's cows it makes my heart bleed". Anyway, Jennifer and Wayne gradually realize they met each other 25 years earlier already, and now they fear that whatever force marked them as young children has returned now. What they don't know, however, is that the spaceship also shed a light on a crazy hermit all those years ago, and he just might be a little too overenthusiastic to satisfy his alien masters.
"The Return" doesn't make a whole lot of sense most of the time, but the film is never boring and there are a handful of highly memorable sequences. Especially during the first hour, Greydon Clark manages to maintain an admirable ambiance of mystery and spookiness. The cattle mutilation footage is well handled and the film does a fairly good job depicting the increasing paranoia amongst the petrified villagers. Still, "The Return" remains mostly enjoyable because of the little details of incompetence all throughout the film. Martin Landau's Sheriff character, for example, is a senselessly murmuring idiot who adds absolutely nothing to the plot and Jan-Michael Vincent does his patrolling with a beer bottle behind the wheel. The cow massacres are done with a miniature light-saber and, near the end, there are some fantastically cheesy sound and lightening effects to illustrate that the aliens have landed. This is a dumb and forgettable movie for about 98% of the world population, but for us 2% die-hard cult smut fanatics, it's guaranteed good fun.
Now, "The Return" may be a bad film in the end, but it's definitely more ambitious and profound than its clumsy elaboration suggests. Personally, I like to believe that Greydon Clark originally intended for his film to be far more horror-orientated, but that the screenplay was "softened" in favor to cash in on some contemporary really popular family/fantasy themed Sci-Fi classics, like "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "Star Wars". The only true horror elements that remained are a crazed hillbilly yokel killing to endorse his extraterrestrial masters and good old-fashioned cattle mutilation. Lots and lots of cattle mutilation! Twenty-five years ago, two young children witnessed a spaceship passing over a small little town in New Mexico. Nobody believed them but now the little town's area causes awkward strange satellite measuring and plenty of dead cow carcasses are floating down the rivers. Jennifer Kramer travels to Little Creek to investigate and teams up with the skeptical deputy Wayne, much against the will of the hostile cattle breeders who are clearly very fond of their cows. This is illustrated through incredibly banal dialogs like: "When I see the mutilated cadavers of my daddy's cows it makes my heart bleed". Anyway, Jennifer and Wayne gradually realize they met each other 25 years earlier already, and now they fear that whatever force marked them as young children has returned now. What they don't know, however, is that the spaceship also shed a light on a crazy hermit all those years ago, and he just might be a little too overenthusiastic to satisfy his alien masters.
"The Return" doesn't make a whole lot of sense most of the time, but the film is never boring and there are a handful of highly memorable sequences. Especially during the first hour, Greydon Clark manages to maintain an admirable ambiance of mystery and spookiness. The cattle mutilation footage is well handled and the film does a fairly good job depicting the increasing paranoia amongst the petrified villagers. Still, "The Return" remains mostly enjoyable because of the little details of incompetence all throughout the film. Martin Landau's Sheriff character, for example, is a senselessly murmuring idiot who adds absolutely nothing to the plot and Jan-Michael Vincent does his patrolling with a beer bottle behind the wheel. The cow massacres are done with a miniature light-saber and, near the end, there are some fantastically cheesy sound and lightening effects to illustrate that the aliens have landed. This is a dumb and forgettable movie for about 98% of the world population, but for us 2% die-hard cult smut fanatics, it's guaranteed good fun.