71 - The Returned

    Zombies exist, but medical treatment allows the infected to live normal lives, as long as they continue to have an injection each day.  A medical professional deals with a shortage of the injection.
    This was a letdown, but not as I expected it to be.  After starting the movie, I was actually impressed with how well the story was being handled.  It was treating the problem a lot like the AIDS epidemic movies would.  Then at a certain point, the story derails a bit.  The wife doesn’t seem to keep in character.  The story makes an effort to get darker, but it all seems a bit more predictable than it should be.
    There are two main things that bug me.  First, it’s the title.  It does evoke zombies, and that’s an easier way to sell the story.  But it’s a misleading approach, and it sounds like a dull title that’s trying to be mysterious.  I can’t think of a better title, but this one is just going to inspire yawns.
    The second thing that bothers me is the ending.  There’s an effort to give it an ending like The Mist that’s just a nasty gut punch.  What made the ending work in The Mist was that their situation seemed entirely impossible.  The audience had no reason to expect otherwise.  (Although, my wife disagreed on this point, but to go in further would have unrelated spoilers.)  In this movie, the surprise is telegraphed well in advance.  To make it worse, the main character isn’t misinformed or anything.  She’s just an impulsive idiot.  An impulsive idiot who works as a doctor.
    The result is an ending that should have been heart-wrenching.  Instead, it feels like a cop-out.

    For about seven years, I’ve wanted to write a zombie script.  When I finally started writing screenplays, I had started outlining a zombie story.  But I gave up on it very quickly.  The zombie genre is getting saturated.