The Return

The Return (1982)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Jennifer (Cybill Shepherd) is a scientist who goes to a small New Mexico town after seeing some bizarre images. Once there she begins to notice that a few things aren't quite right and she teams up with the Deputy Wayne (Jan-Michael Vincent). At first some strange cattle mutilations are happening but before long humans are being killed and it all might be connected to something Jennifer and Wayne witnessed as children.

Despite a terrific cast, Greydon Clark's THE RETURN has pretty much been forgotten and overlooked. It was certainly an attempt to try and cash-in on the sci-fi boom that took off after the success of Steven Spielberg's CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND and I think this film was meant to try and be in the same league. With that said, there's no question that they were dealing with a very small budget here that prevented that but on the whole THE RETURN was more entertaining than I thought it would be.

The film certainly has some flaws and I will start with them. This includes the ending, which I won't spoil here but I think it fell well short of the emotional punch that the director was going for. I'd also argue that the film started to drag during the final twenty-minutes, which was another problem. The special effects certainly aren't as good as one would hope for but considering the budget this here can be forgiven. With all of that being said, the film does start off pretty strong and hold your attention throughout most of it.

I thought the cattle mutilation sub-plot was actually interesting and it was done in a good manor. I liked how the townspeople, backwards rednecks, were more worried about the scientist and their dumb fears that she was the ones killing the cows. We get some very familiar faces here so this also helps hold your attention throughout. Vincent and Shepherd make for a good team but we also get veteran actors like Martin Landau, Raymond Burr and Neville Brand. Vincent Schiavelli, the one and only, also appears in a good role.

I'm sure a higher budget would have allowed the film to do a bit more but if you look at THE RETURN the same way you would the "B" sci-fi movies of the 1950s then you should find enough to keep you entertained.

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.

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.

In fact, the cheesiness of the whole thing lends itself quite well to the overall alien encounter stuff.

Nothing is really explained. Some odd things happen. It never really drags.

And it is not the low point in the career of any of the cast. So it has that going for it.

"The Return" has to rank as one of the lesser efforts of veteran cult director Greydon Clark. It's not that it's all THAT incompetent, but a weak script, co-written by brothers Ken and Jim Wheat ("The Silent Scream", "Pitch Black") prevents it from working all that well. The audience is going to end up scratching their heads while they try to make some sense out of the strange goings-on. As for the rest, it's all just silly and cheesy enough to rate as acceptable B movie entertainment. This reviewer knows that he throws out the word "amusing" an awful lot, but there's really no other way to describe this thing. And it's that amusement factor that manages to keep this watchable.

The actors are remarkably sincere. Jan-Michael Vincent and Cybill Shepherd star as Wayne and Jennifer, a deputy in a small New Mexico town and hottie scientist respectively, who as children had had a close encounter. Also witness to the aliens' arrival was a prospector (the late, great character actor Vincent Schiavelli, one of those people who you always recognize but whose name you may never remember). The kids grow up, of course, but Schiavelli remains the same age. Shepherds' character gets wind of strange fog activity in this small town and soon after she gets there cattle begin to be mutilated. Then, people get mutilated as well.

Things take a pretty goofy turn when a character is seen to carry around a lightsaber type weapon, except it's held in the middle. Add to this a light show that is actually fairly impressive as well as some decent makeup effects and solid rural atmosphere, and the viewer gets what amounts to a mild hoot of a movie. Also in the cast are Martin Landau, who's wasted as Vincents' comedy-relief sheriff, Raymond Burr as Shepherds' father, who looks like he's reading his lines at times (and indeed he was), Neville Brand as a hostile rancher, Brad Rearden (who'd acted in "The Silent Scream") as Brands' bratty son, and Clark regular Darby Hinton ("Malibu Express") as one of Reardens' trouble making pals. Undeniable assets are cinematography by Daniel Pearl ("The Texas Chain Saw Massacre") and nice music by Dan Wyman.

Clark also did the well regarded "Without Warning" that was released the same year as this, and that one is recommended more than "The Return", which even B movie enthusiasts might find underwhelming.

Clark appears on screen as a city slicker victim.

Six out of 10.