RESURRECTION
Starring: Rebecca Hall, Tim Roth, Grace Kaufman, Michael Esper, and Angela Wong Carbone
Director: Andrew Semans
JACOB
Resurrection is a deeply unsettling horror film and one of the most disturbing releases of the year so far. Director Andrew Semans’ disquieting tale is precisely so because there are no big moments and no obvious scares to jolt the audience. It simply shows us horrifying images, asks us horrifying questions, and then has us sit with both as we await what’s next. Rebecca Hall is excellent per usual, but it’s Tim Roth who ends up being the scariest part of it all. Even with the briefest of screen-time, he’s terror-inducing. The ending could have been less ambiguous, but it’s not detrimental.
QUENTIN
I don’t want to take anything away from Rebecca Hall, who has proven herself so capable at playing traumatized white women that one must wonder if it’s even an act anymore, but her great performance in Resurrection can’t save this slow burn of a movie that goes so far off the rails that it elicited an audible groan from me. The start is strong, if maybe a little too deliberate, building strong tension and a compelling gaslighting mystery, but the silly payoff is not worth the patience. I can’t in good conscience recommend this movie, even to the strongest of indie horror film buffs.
