‘Maintain control’
Resurrection is a 2022 psycho thriller in which a successful businesswoman/single mother’s calm life is disrupted by her traumatic past.
Written and directed by Andrew Semans (Nancy, Please).
The Secret Engine-Square Peg production stars Rebecca Hall, Angela Wong Carbone, Josh Drennen, Rosemary Howard, Winsome Brown and Tim Roth.
Reviews:
“Director Andrew Semans has provided a chilling, tense psychological thriller. But his script leaves me overly cold. I invested fully in the turbulent emotional journey of this character, only to find little satisfaction in the payoff. Propping this material up are Hall, Roth, and Kaufman, who all give capable performances. Hall, in particular, keeps this material from sinking into a mire of misery.” CineFiles
“Resurrection is a tedious, one-note paranoiac thriller that never shifts gears to get out of its rut. With classy production values and a tony cast led by Rebecca Hall and Tim Roth, writer-director Andrew Semans’ first feature in a decade, since the similarly plotted Nancy, Please, grinds on trying to build suspense but doesn’t have much of a clue as to how to tease and tantalize an audience.” Deadline
“If nothing else, Andrew Semans is committed to that gimmick and certainly doesn’t cop out during the climax, which is ultimately what pushes Resurrection from mixed bag to worth checking out […] Resurrection could have been a truly unforgettable experience with some tweaks and a little more depth to its script […] but it’s most definitely some compelling shock value elevated by Rebecca Hall taking such a trashy thriller seriously.” Flickering Myth
“It has the feeling of a short film stretched beyond its limit, with all that early tension dissipating, and while there’s certainly something jolting about the gonzo violence in the finale, it’s otherwise ineffectual. Semans chooses to end on a surreal, ambiguous note, but it’s one that feels less daring and more down to a lack of better ideas. Hall yet again is supreme, the film, yet again, less so.” The Guardian
” …Semans playfully borrows from myriad stalker films and even edges toward a Sixth Sense element of the supernatural. The narrative sticks to Margaret’s point of view, which keeps us constantly off-guard and guessing right through to the bloody, horror-tinged end. The buildup is a bit too slow…” The Hollywood Reporter
“While Resurrection moves towards a seemingly inevitable denouement for Margaret and everyone in her immediate orbit, it’s Hall’s note-perfect, awe-inspiring performance as a woman breaking under the wrenching, unquantifiable weight of guilt, trauma, and loss that makes Resurrection an irresistible watch from the moment she enters the frame in the opening moments through the last, deliberately ambiguous image.” Screen Anarchy
“It’s so easy to watch a film that takes monumentally big swings like Resurrection and give in to the urge to reject it. But on its own terms, in a story where sanity is fluid and delusions seem indistinguishable from emotional truth, its power to shock is very real and very valid. It’s the sort of horror movie where a simple conversation can have you begging, in the back of your mind, for the scene to stop moving forward. Where the tiniest possibility that what we’re seeing is real is enough to put you off your lunch.” The Wrap
Release:
In the US, IFC Films will release Resurrection theatrically on July 29, 2022, and On-Demand (VOD) on August 5, 2022. It will be available for streaming on Shudder in November 2022.
YouTube reviews:
Teaser trailer:
Trailer:
Cast and characters:
Rebecca Hall … Margaret
Tim Roth … David
Grace Kaufman … Abbie
Michael Esper … Peter
Angela Wong Carbone … Gwyn
Josh Drennen … Officer Geary
Rosemary Howard … Desk Clerk
Winsome Brown … Tess
Jaime Zevallos … Driver
Owen Johnson … Ben
Jackson Finnegan … Ben
Zarra Kaahn … Amanda
Technical details:
1 hour 43 minutes
