They Remain (2018)

This is How Movies Should Be Made

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

I've seen a lot of movies in my life, and I mean it, A LOT, but nothing like this. It lets you wonder where did you encounter such feelings, such movie... Both actors, never seen them before, play actual very well, especially the woman character. The tension rises but soon you discover that it happens but not in the way you would expect and that gives you a strange feeling that soemthing is not right with this movie, with what you already seen. And as just in the best movies, it keep you guessing and you mind constructs things on the fly based of your movie experience, but nothing seem to prepare you for the final. A very good indie movie I'd say.

They Remain, based on the short story "--30--" by master horror writer Laird Barron, is a quiet and atmospheric work of creeping psychological horror. This may depend too much on mood and subtlety for viewers who want a slam-bang horror movie, but if you enjoy the slow, menacing creep of dread, and especially characters stuck in a remote natural environment to heighten the sense of paranoia and exposure, you'll love this like I did.

I can see why some people don't like this movie. It takes work, it demands your attention and makes nothing easy. You can't check your phone while watching this, you've got to let yourself just be with it. It's quiet and not "scary" but it is unsettling. What the hell is going on here? Is this science fiction, is it contemporary? The film is self-consciously oblique which I enjoyed; I enjoyed trying to fill in the blanks and I've enjoyed the moments when it has popped back in my head that maybe this is what something or other meant. This is one that you will have to decide for yourself; don't let anyone tell you you will or won't enjoy it, but if you like the Speculative and Weird, you should see this and make up your own mind!

Compelling performances, often-gorgeous cinematography, and a persistent sense of unease and alien eroticism, make for a hypnotic Horror film that opens itself up for you get lost in its rich textures and existential dread. Think 'Picnic at Hanging Rock,' but with a touch more paganism. It's pretty great.They Remain is, to my knowledge, the first cinematic adaptation of a Laird Barron story (this one being rooted in -30- from the Occultation short story collection), and it does a wonderful job of evoking the unsettling world-behind-the-world that is the persistent undercurrent of Barron's work. Readers of story might note that the setting has moved from a California desert to a chilly forest - a move I think really works to the film's advantage, letting the internal confusion of the characters manifest externally, and - importantly - providing an environment that feels ancient and alive, brimming with cycles of life and death, decomposition and rebirth. For me, at least, it gives it much more of a 'folk horror' atmosphere that I really connected with.Separating this film from other works adjacent to this stripe of dream-inflected natural Horror is the strong work by the two lead actors. They largely carry, and solidify, the narrative by skirting between both alienation and dependence, keeping the audience enthralled in the acrimony bubbling under the surface within the tight confines of the field research lab, as the ebb and flow of needing a home to come back to conflicts with the compulsion to taste the reckless freedom of just being lost in nature, and the price that is paid for both.It's a really excellent film that, for the right audience at least, is going to be a deeply compelling and unsettling experience.