They Came Back (2004)

That was an excellent one.

Thanks for the memories!

I wanted to but couldn't!

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

They came back. They sure did, all of them. However the two hours you spend watching this film will not come back. Never ever come back. Some will claim an artistic charm that you or I are to dumb to appreciate, others will protest the film provides in insightful glimpse into the boundaries of the living and their recently dead relatives. Both would be wrong. This film lacks the most basic of plots, reason, interest, debate or conversation.The living are more void of life than the dead. Questions are posed simply for the sake of posing a question. There is no point, there is no provocation. Nothing.I implore you readers to spend the time you considered using to watch this film on something more interesting and productive and thought provoking doing something like boiling an egg.Please your sanity depends on it.

Four and a half thousand years ago, the Sumerian civilization existed in the land we now call Iraq. In a surviving work of their literature, deciphered from a baked clay tablet, we learn that their goddess of love, named Inanna (who was called Ishtar by the later Babylonians), threatened to go down to the Underworld and smash the doors, saying: 'And all the dead will get out, and they will outnumber the living.' This ancient fear of our species, explicitly documented circa 2500 BC but really extending throughout the entire history of mankind, is explored in this strange and eerie French film, which has now inspired a popular French television series of the same original title and theme. This film is entitled in French LES REVENANTS, which means THE RETURNED, and that is the title used now on the DVD release with English subtitles, though the cinema release with subtitles a few years ago was as THEY CAME BACK, a title which has now been abandoned, so that the continuity may be clear to purchasers that this is the basis of the TV series, which is making a hit. Essentially, this is a film about zombies, but it is not at all a horror film, and none of them stagger around making gormless noises and bashing people. Nor are they comical, in the hysterically funny mode of SHAUN OF THE DEAD with Simon Pegg (2004, see my review), which by strange coincidence came out in the same year as this film, for this film portrays zombies very seriously and thoughtfully, and is as far from being a comedy as you can get. The study of the 'returned dead' is extremely sophisticated. One day, without explanation, large numbers of recently dead people are seen walking from the cemetery back into a provincial French town. They are all physically fit but rather dazed and uncommunicative. In this town alone, 13,000 of them suddenly appear, having left their graves. They are not at all threatening, but are quiet and reserved and, somewhat ominously, all seem to have an understanding with one another. We are told that millions of 'returned dead' have appeared all over France, and some satire creeps into the film here, because meetings are held in which various politically correct people insist that the human rights of these dead people must be respected, they must all have their old jobs back, and their pensions must be reinstated. Most of them are elderly, but there are a few younger ones and children. Extensive bureaucracy then grinds into slow motion, as the returnees are identified and kept in a compound, sleeping on bunks before being reunited with their families. But then it is noticed that they are not sleeping, but merely pretending to sleep. It is also noticed that their body temperatures are all five degrees lower than normal. They are hyper-active and begin to have secret meetings at night while 'living humans' are asleep. They become increasingly restless and seem continually to want to flee, but it is not clear to where they wish to flee. They have mostly lost their memories, which come back to them slowly, although they are perfectly capable of speaking fluently when they need to, and of carrying out any daily tasks. They remember where they used to live and recognise their family members. But they appear to be incapable of relating to any living person emotionally, or having any feelings. Hence, there are no tearful reunions and desperate huggings. They are distant, and the living humans are made very uncomfortable by their presence, so that many people refuse to see the returned dead whom they had once loved. This is a very strange film indeed, very much under-stated, and hence all the more effective for that reason. This wonderfully evocative and mysterious film was the first film directed by Robin Campillo, and it was an impressive debut, done with great skill. He has just completed his second film, EASTERN BOYS (2013), which is apparently not yet released. Campillo also wrote this film, jointly with Brigitte Tijou. It is no wonder that this provocative and disturbing examination of one of our deepest fears has inspired a television series, for it is easy to think of endless episodes in which further and further layers of mystery are peeled away from this nearly inexhaustible subject. After all, the subject of zombies is never really dead, even though they themselves are.

I bought this on a whim because it was super cheap, because the plot seemed interesting and because there was a blurb from Ain't It Cool News referring to Shaun of the Dead. Well, I regret my naivety and impulsive buy. All over the world, but in this film a small french town, the people who died over the last 10 years come back. They don't look decomposed, they're not hungry for human flesh, they just walk slowly and are pretty much dazed and emotionless. The box cover and the intro basically have the most memorable and "scariest" sequence of the story: a bunch of mostly old people walking in the streets. Do not expect horror, fun or suspense. OK, perhaps a little suspense/mystery that will unnecessarily frustrate you as too often, there are cuts away from impactful dramatic moments (ex: reunions of living and previously dead), but most importantly because nothing is explained or revealed. There's not much happening in terms of events and virtually no pay-offs watching this semblance of a story so very slowly unfold, either for the small things or the big overall mystery.Just so we're clear, this is nothing at all like Shaun of the Dead; this is a serious artsy drama, void of special effects, with a great concept (returning dead that are not zombies) that is totally and shamefully wasted. I found this movie didn't really have much emotionality to it, that it was really cold and lifeless. Some might consider it melancholy, but to me it would be an insult to that beautiful yet sometimes painful feeling. To finish, all the big questions you think living people would ask their formerly defunct loved ones? None of that here. Perhaps somewhere it was said the dead don't remember, but in any case, it was an easy cop-out, rendered all the more cheap by the cheap ending.Rating: 2 out of 10 (terrible)

Let me save everyone 2 hours of their life. So, "zombies", i use that term loosely, come back from the dead. Why? you don't know and you wont find out either. They are integrated back into society....cue the hour and a half of nothingness. Talking, talking, and more talking........OK, some bombs go off and a kid jumps off a balcony, sounds cool right? things are picking up right? wrong. The end. So my review doesn't make sense, exactly, neither does this piece of crap movie. Why are there zombies, how are there zombies, what are they doing, and where are they going....you'll never find out. The only good IMDb scores come from people who wanna pretend they're artsy and "get it". They don't get it and they know this movie blows. Spend your 2 hours trying to bite your own ear, at least it's entertaining to someone, unlike this crap.