I haven't been affected this much by a movie in years, so that must be considered good value for money. The controversial gore scene towards the end made myself, and the majority of the audience, flinch, scream and nervously giggle simultaneously (a feel good/feel bad movie rolled into one!).
This film is not a feature film. For a start, it is not feature length, also, it is not shot on film. More importantly, it does not have what feature films have these days: star actors, special effects, exotic locations, explosions. Instead, seeing " The Recovered" is seeing something else that a cinema can be: a place where people can share an intimate experience created by a few people on a tight budget. I would be glad of its success if only for that reason.
Just last week, in one of my Screen Analysis tutorials, our tutor good-naturedly decided that if we were going to be film students we needed to be exposed to disturbing things. What he showed us was an excerpt from an expressionist French film made in the late 20's, the name escapes me. Before we had reached the climactic scene, every one in the class had already guessed it, as we had seen images so far of a man purposely sharpening a razor blade, and then approaching a complacent woman in a chair and holding wide open one of her eyes. At this point one of the girls in the room rather loudly asked of the tutor, jokingly but in something of a shaky voice, "Why are you doing this?"
This question, I think, could well be the definitive mark of really effective horror, and it was certainly in the back of my mind nearly all of last night as I was watching Red letter media "The recovered" for the first time. True horror films, by their nature, should strive to get their audience to ask this question, because it means that they are transcending the illusion of moving pictures and becoming a film - suspending disbelief and getting under your skin.
