Le retour

" The Return" views like a puzzle that is impossible to solve. It features some intriguing actors including, Neville Brand, Martin Landau, and Vincent Schiavelli, in supporting roles. A small New Mexico town is visited by aliens, putting on a light show. Two children and Schiavelli, are "contacted" for an unknown purpose. Fast forward twenty five years when Cybil Shepherd and Jan Michael Vincent, are enlightened that they were the two chosen children. Chosen for what is of course unknown. Meanwhile Neville Brand, playing a local rancher, is dealing with cattle mutilations, that he blames on scientist Shepherd. Raymond Burr, Shepherd's Father, deduces that the aliens left some sign carved on a rock for an unknown purpose. "The Return" is a movie asking all questions while revealing zero answers, and is a very frustrating viewing experience. - MERK

I had actually never heard about this sci-fi thriller titled "The Return" from 1980. I stumbled upon the movie by random chance here in 2023, and while I am not overly keen on sci-fi movies in general, then I still opted to watch "The Return", as I sat it had Cybill Shepherd and Jan-Michael Vincent on the cast list.

Writers Ken Wheat, Jim Wheat and Curtis Burch didn't exactly manage to put together an overwhelmingly interesting or entertaining script for the movie. I was rather bored throughout the 91 minutes that the movie trotted on for; especially since everything felt random and didn't have much of any red thread to.

The acting performances in the movie were fair enough. Nothing grand, though.

The special effects in "The Return" were nothing spectacular. There were some effects, and some actually played out well enough, while others were dubious at best.

I am sure that die-hard sci-fi fans could get a kick out of watching "The Return". But me, as a casual viewer, didn't find much enjoyment in director Greydon Clark's 1980 movie.

My rating of "The Return" lands on a three out of ten stars.

Jennifer has come to a small New Mexico town to set up geological monitoring equipment for her father's organization. Some of the townspeople find her behavior suspicious. And she gets attacked several times by a vicious but mysterious dog. Several ranchers have lost cattle that were not only killed but mutilated, and cults or perhaps aliens are blamed because there are no flies or anything.

Dr. Kramer, Jennifer's father, comes to the town wanting to know more about what is going on. The ranchers, including the independent and stubborn Walt, resent people who know nothing about cattle butting into the situation. Meanwhile, Deputy Wayne seems to like Jennifer.

Later, people are found mutilated as well as cattle. The first time it happens, a weird looking man shows up carrying what looks like the light sabers from the 'Star Wars' movies, only it is held in the middle.

Shepherd did a good job as an actress here, but mostly she just looked beautiful. I'm used to seeing her look like, say, Martha Stewart these days. Raymond Burr seemed like Perry Mason at times, but in other scenes he and all the other actors seemed like they were reading their lines. I'm thinking particularly of a scene back at his headquarters where the scientists were explaining their theories.

I didn't find this movie particularly scary, except when the dog was on screen, and in scenes close to the end. That's okay because I don't like scary. The violence was not all that bad, though we did see blood. The special effects were not that great, though we got to see what looked like a portal into another dimension several times. It looked like the kind of modern art people often hate if they want realism. It was pretty to look at, anyway--sort of like a purple 'black hole'.

The ending was weird but satisfying in a way, though I couldn't help but feel someone cheated because they couldn't find their way out of the mess they had gotten into.

I've seen better mysteries.

Twenty-five years ago three people in a small town had an encounter with a UFO.Today all three people find themselves back in a small rural town.A local cop.A female scientist.A hermit who enjoys mutilating and killing cows."The Return" by Greydon Clark is nowhere nearly as suspenseful and memorable as "Without Warning".The plot often doesn't make sense and there are some dull sequences.The cast is pretty familiar with Martin Landau,Vincent Schiavelli,Jan Michael Vincent and Raymond Burr to boost.Unfortunately their performances are mostly weak and forgettable.The cattle mutilation sub-plot is a nice touch,though.Overall,"The Return" is watchable but generally speaking I personally think there are much better sci-fi horror films out there.6 cattle mutilations out of 10.

Two children who grow up to be Jan-Michael Vincent and Cybill Shepherd have a close encounter with an alien spaceship. Twenty five years later they reunite as some strange things are happening in the small New Mexico town where Vincent is now part of law enforcement and Shepherd is now a scientist.

The Return is a ripoff of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind only it was done on the budget that that science fiction classic spent on its catering. We learn here that Raymond Burr who plays Shepherd's father was so bored with the whole thing that he read his lines off a teleprompter. I can't blame him, the whole thing bored me as well.

The term worm hole had not been given to us courtesy of Star Trek - The Next Generation. But that's what Burr and Shepherd and the rest of the scientists have monitored and that's why Shepherd is back to investigate. I still haven't figured out just what it was there for.

The rest of the cast took Raymond Burr's somnambulist approach to the film. It can put anyone to sleep even the players.