Review: The Returned (2013)

The Returned

IMDB rate: 5,9

Genre: Zombie, Drama

I think that The Returned would be best described with it's not your typical zombie movie. The movie is indeed about zombies, but well, we only saw one active zombie the entire movie and the very little other ones that we saw were all in a flashback. 

Storyline taken from IMDB:

In a world where a deadly zombie virus has infected mankind, a single cure has been found. The cure, a treatment called the "Return Protein" which stays the effects of the virus in it's host. With injections every 36 hours, the "Returned" are able to live as though they were never bit, despite the virus still coursing through their veins. When it is discovered that the protein stock is running low, chaos hits the streets. 

Basically, everyone who once was changing into a zombie was given a second chance by this "Return Protein", meaning the world is pretty much normal, besides the fact that their past is messed up. 

In this movie you hardly notice that it's a movie about zombies, you know that the movie is about them, but without seeing them the movie feels a lot different. The few zombies that are being shown is not to make this movie scary or tensive, they're mostly being shown to describe the happenings of the past or to show the emotions of the characters to the viewers. 

The movie haves a few bloody scenes, but they're definitely not the main point of this movie. 

You would think that the people in this movie would be happy that people have the opportunity to live a reasonably normal life, because I'm quite sure that every person has lost at least on relative to the zombie outbreak. That's definitely not the case. There are protesters everywhere that want to get rid of the Returned, because they think they're ticking time bombs.

In a way this is true, because they do need to get their medicine in time if they don't want to change back. But still, many of these protesters have family who are still alive because of this protein, so they really shouldn't complain. 

A pretty good scene was when a few of these protesters broke into the hospital and killed off every person on the 'Returned' section. They also took all the records of all the Returned persons in that city meaning they knew who was infected. The main character did indeed get involved with one of these bad persons but what I liked specifically about this scene was that we didn't have to watch their entire fight, no we watch it from the moment his girlfriend walked in, two seconds before he manages to kill the intruder. 

The acting is really good. I didn't know any of these actors, but I was quite impressed with them. Kris Holden-Ried plays Alex, who is one of the Returned. His girlfriend Kate is played by Emily Hampshire, she works in the 'Returned section' of the hospital. 

If you're expecting a gory zombie movie then you will be greatly disappointed. I think the movie needs to be approached with an open mind, because even though it could be classified as a zombie movie, you hardly notice anything of the zombie aspect. I do think this is a good movie though, I really had fun watching it because it was very different from what I'm used to. The ending was slightly disappointing, I don't really get what made the director decide to make an ending like this because it would've been much better if it was different. 

My personal rate: 7,5/10