Resurrection (2022) - Movie Review

What do you get when you take a brilliant actress, a creepy character actor, and a script / story that is absolutely mental?

A movie that had my wife walkout halfway through and my Boomer father cheering at the end.

Let’s discuss.

Resurrection is a 2022 horror / thriller brought to us by writer / director Andrew Siemens. If that name is unfamiliar to you, you’re not alone. I had no idea until I did research on the movie. Turns out her directed two really boring movies in 2008’s The Duchess and 2012’s Nancy Please.

I know, I didn’t watch those either.

But that aside, I think he did an admirable job with a script that’s as mad as this one. I couldn’t imagine being handed this script and being gungho to put yourself through this story. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed this movie, but sweet Jesus I needed a shower afterward. (that’s a good thing)

The film focuses on Margaret, a girl boss working in the pharmaceutical industry. She’s a man-eating single mother who only uses men to fill her needs and then discards them. She had a daughter, not out of a relationship—but because she wanted one, and thus had unprotected sex with men at bars. It’s a lonely existence, especially as her daughter is nearing leaving home for college. It becomes lonelier as her daughter fights back against her mother’s ultra-feminist ideals and just wants to live a fun, happy life. With all this stress in place, a familiar face pops up at a conference. A man who did unspeakable things to Margaret that shaped her through brutal trauma has returned. She worked hard to run from him, to disappear and yet there he is. He knows all, he sees all, and he’s got ominous intention. However, he won’t hurt Margaret’s daughter as long as she follows the daily rituals he requests. Will these kindnesses destroy her fragile mind or will Margaret find a new path to Resurrection?

It was really hard to summarize this film. Partly because, this is a comparatively short film and is a brisk descent into madness that relies on going in blind. There are multiple “Oh Shit!” moments and the only film I really could compare it to is one of the most hardcore horror movies ever made: 1981’s Possession. While it’s not that over the top traumatic a viewing experience, my wife couldn’t handle the incredibly creepy atmosphere and dialogue and had to leave the room.

For context, my wife is a moderate liberal (non-woke, God bless her) and her favorite film is The Exorcist. So, she’s not exactly someone with a weak constitution.

My other viewing partner was my 75 year old, boomer-Republican father—whose favorite film is the forgotten 1991 Sci-fi oddity, Until the End of the World. He’s not a horror hound, but as this movie got more insane—he got more and more invested—as I did.

This is a divisive movie. Reviews aren’t great, but that’s to be expected with a challenging film.

But let’s talk generalities.

This movie is is shot beautifully. Which makes sense considering Wyatt Garfield handled the cinematography. He has a brilliant eye, but up until this point hasn’t worked on a film I cared to watch all the way through. The city of Albany is shot without wet streets, without being scrubbed clean, and it just looks so cold and real.

Teamed with an awesome musical score by the brilliant Jim Williams, that seemsto cave your chest in with low tonal sound. This may be one of Williams’ best—which is saying something after his fantastic work on Titane and Possessor.

Then there’s the acting.

Rebecca Hall is a beast. This is the second movie I’ve watched where she has carried the film on her shoulders. The first was the brilliant The Night House and this is a great double feature to pair it with.

Tim Roth was born creepy and he gets to turn fully into it here. His performance is as charismatic and it is terror-inducing. How a man of such small a stature can be so intimidating is almost gross. To top it all off, he gets to have a scene that challenges Reservoir Dogs a run for its money.

I loved this movie. It was a brutal mind-fuck of a film. It’s not for everyone, but if you want something different and something weird, this is the movie for you.

Check it out streaming exclusively on Shudder.

now then…

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One thing I like about this bat-shit movie is that the writer / director didn’t write this film to send any particular message. I’ve seen the actors try and say it was about abortion or the patriarchy, but the writer /director merely set-out to tell a story about a person pushed to the edge and what happens when modern stresses catch up with generational trauma.

What a novel concept, huh? Write a movie to be a piece of art with an objective narrative base. The movie has good men and bad men. It has good women and bad women. In fact, I’d argue that the antagonist and protagonist are the same.

I don’t believe David, Margaret’s abuser, is actually there. I believe he was real at one time and that she did experience horrendous abuse, but the David we meet is just symptomatic of Margaret’s mental collapse. She says at the beginning of the film that she’s begun drawing again. This is a throwaway line at first, but then you find out that when she met David, she drew obsessively.

She also displays multiple symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder throughout the film, going off the handle when her daughter leaves a bowl on the side table of the spotless apartment. She adjusts items to be level or stacked properly, again—on the down low. It’s not something overtly spotlighted. You have to pay attention to see it.

Thus, when she stops being OCD and you begin to see her veneer of strength and feminist might fall away—it’s all the more emblematic of her psychotic break.

David is the voice in her head. It’s a voice that’s always been there. That’s how he’s omnipresent, how he knows everything about her current life, and also why no one else can see him. Even in the diner, when the waitress approaches she talks to David, but doesn’t even look in Margaret’s direction. It’s as if there’s only one person in the booth. It’s also why David’s hotel says no one is staying there by that name and why the manager freaks out when she finds Margaret in one of the rooms.

Yes, Margaret found the blanket in that room, but did she really? Did you notice when she was chased out, the tissue paper she’d torn apart and discarded on the floor had vanished? The room was just as it was when she entered?

I think the insanity of the ending was also darker than it appeared. I believe Margaret cut herself open in that hotel room and the glowing alternate reality she experiences after the bloody mess of the climax is her consciousness retreating within itself at the moment death. This new perfect world is her coping mechanism as she drifts into the infinite darkness.

But that’s my take.

The great thing about movies like this, movies that allow you to debate is that people will have different takes.

What do you think?