the audience applauded

good back-story, and good acting

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

A mysterious white van travels through a small Indiana town and at night it blasts residents with high frequency sound waves that make some residents go crazy. Catching onto the strange things happening are TV repairman Bodecker (J.J. Huckin) and factory worker Katie (Amy Paliganoff), who is seemingly immune to the blasts. Tharpe's second feature film is a decidedly measured dose of small town paranoia that reminds me of Romero's THE CRAZIES (1973). One of the great things about the film is the viewer is never privy to who is behind these small town high frequency attacks. Opening and closing bits imply the U.S. government, but viewers are never given answers. That along with some genuine surprises and a few really creepy scenes made this enjoyable for me. It is very leisurely paced. So much so that Ti West would scream, "Pick up the pace!" Once again, Tharpe captures a small Midwestern town perfectly. There are also some nice recurring shot motifs going on.

While the general theme of secret experiments conducted on the public may seem appealing to some viewers, "Return in Red" hardly seems to do the idea any credit.I am not going to argue that the acting or cinematography was sub-par; you don't really need name actors or a million dollar budget do create a great film. However, one thing is essential is a plot that is logical, reasonable and understandable.There were a few good aspects of the film. The dreariness of the film's visual style blended nicely with the constant sound of the wind in exterior scenes; together, they nicely enhance the feeling of isolation leading to helplessness. However, a film must be about more than setting.Good films have dialogue; even the old silent films still had character interactions and a plot that you could follow. Sadly, this film often neglected both. Too many scenes had little more than people quietly walking around. There is little about the relationships between people that seem hard pressed to display anything more than wooden sullenness.Even the supposed theme of government experiments is highly questionable. You never see anything of the experimenters except for a van, some piece of electrical hardware, and a black-clothed gloved arm that grabs people. You never see or hear anything about motivation, except for someone calling-in to a radio talk show at the film's end with a claim about government experiments. While it might be what happened, there is nothing here that justifies that.There are too many unexplained events as well. One character has a dream that foreshadows events, but is never explained. Is she supposed to be psychic or was it some amazing coincidence? The two people at the end supposed to be immune to the experiment's effects? Nothing is explained.Given the lack of information, the lack of character dialogue, and the lack of reasonable explanations of motives, I'd have to say that this film generally also lacks any value.

50s/60s, anachronistic, low budget style horror film. humans are the monsters. most younger(and enough older)horror film fans will find this disappointing/boring... i think people who praised it did so b/c they're from the same part of the world where it was filmed... d-d-d-d-d dat's all folks... i just learned, after trying to submit the above, that the IMDb folk require 10 lines of text, using no 'junk words'. what are junk words? and that doesn't make my summary 'concise', does it? seriously...there's not a whole lot more to say about this film... and i'm trying to do potential viewers a service. i hope the IMDb personnel understand this... personally, i enjoyed the mood that the setting -- backwoods America -- lent to the overall effect. i guess that's 10 lines...

A cast of very real ordinary people do much to overcome an underdeveloped and poorly written script. Even though the cast tries hard to make lemonade out of lemons the story ultimately sours. Several of the characters show tremendous potential and there were relationships that could have been developed to success, why the writer and director went the way they did is hard to understand. A few better plot choices possibly could have allowed us to see into a realistic view of rural America. A really interesting scene between a boy and his mother had me on the edge of my seat, but it was never really resolved. The scene built powerfully and then ended with a startling grab in a dark field. The story did that several times, start moving with some intensity and then crash into a cheap thrill. The climax wonders aimlessly through poorly arranged gore vignettes. By showing to much to fast and the lack of budget for decent visual effects what little credibility the cast had built up was wasted. I was reminded of "The Blair Witch Project" in which the director relied on talented actors to build suspense and mystery. It remains one of the scarcest and successful independent horror films ever made and not a dime was spent on fake blood and rubber masks. I still wonder if the actors could have done much better if the director and writer had gotten out of the way here. In the end the movie make no effort to resolve at all. The plot resolves no more in the end than it is explained by a corny narration in the first moments of the movie. If you are really looking for a good independent horror film let me suggest "Salvage" instead. Performances by Chris Ferry and Lauren Currie Lewis will knock your socks off.