Sarah Michelle Gellar

Gellar horror unlikely to get "Return" business

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - It’s nice to see that Sarah Michelle Gellar isn’t bearing any more grudges, but she’s not faring much better in "The Return," a murky horror film released Friday without advance press screenings. It opened at No. 8 with weekend sales of just $4.5 million.

Starring as a disturbed young woman haunted by nightmarish visions, the actress is most notable here for her new appearance in brunette locks. She plays Joanna, a 25-year-old Midwesterner who does well by her job as a hard-driving saleswoman for a trucking company. Her personal life is less felicitous: She has a difficult relationship with her father (Sam Shepard); she’s being stalked by her obsessive ex-boyfriend (Adam Scott); and she’s haunted by memories of her past, including being terrorized by a stranger at a carnival when she was a little girl and her subsequent self-mutilation. And she’s having visions and hearing voices regarding the brutal murder of another young woman.

When she meets a mysterious stranger (Peter O’Brien) who comes to her defense when she’s being attacked by her ex, it only triggers more nightmarish episodes, most of which are accompanied by snippets of Patsy Cline’s recording of "Sweet Dreams."

While Adam Sussman’s screenplay can be admired for its emphasis on subtle atmospherics rather than cheap scares, it is a gimmicky slog of an affair that lacks narrative coherence or strong focus. The endless scenes of Gellar’s character becoming disoriented quickly prove wearisome, and the attempts at psychological depth and the requisite trick ending are less than convincing.

Asif Kapadia’s helming is similarly lacking in sharpness, though he and cinematographer Roman Osin have at least provided a distinctive, bleached-out visual style that well exploits the barren Texas locations.

Having little to do other than act disturbed, Gellar doesn’t exactly have the opportunity to display much of her natural charisma. And while Shepard (who admittedly has slummed often in his acting career) provides his thankless role with his usual gravitas, it’s still disheartening to see one of the great dramatists of our generation reduced to appearing in schlock.