Sarah Michelle Gellar

Horror house

She may have failed miserably to escape the genre, but Sarah Michelle Gellar appears to have picked a more challenging role than Buffy for her latest supernatural horror flick.

The Return is more Hitchcock than Carpenter, but there are supernatural undertones as Gellar’s character, businesswoman Joanna Mills, endures nightmares about a murder.

The dreams lead her to a deserted farmhouse where she discovers the reasons the dark thoughts haunt her.

Her character grew up through a troubled childhood and is left unable to trust anyone in her life, so Gellar gets a chance to develop the role in a film which has been given the thumbs up by American critics.

The film takes inspiration from recent Japanese successes like Ring, which prefer to creep up on you stealthily, before delivering the chilling conclusion.

The Return, Certificate 15, on general release from Friday January 19.