The Revenant
The Revenant
R | 26 September 2009 (USA)
The Revenant Trailers

A horror movie/buddy comedy about Joey and his undead friend Bart who comes back from the dead as a revenant: an articulate zombie that needs to drink blood to arrest the decomposition of his body.

Reviews
Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever
Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.
Ortiz Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.
grantss Surprisingly good. Not your average horror movie at all (being good gives that away already). Sort of a zombie-stoner-bromance-action- comedy-horror movie. Kind of Shaun of the Dead, but a lot darker and grittier.Original, interesting and often hilarious. Could have been even better. From a point it could have gone in many directions, and it chooses a direction which ultimately leads down a dead-end path. This leaves the ending to be rather contrived and unsatisfactory. However, what comes before then is very entertaining.Good performances from Chris Wylde and David Anders in the lead roles.
bowmanblue Okay, so zombies and vampires seem to have been done to death lately. We've had romantic vampires, comedy zombies and a hundred hybrids of the two. So, just when we think we've seen every different slant on the undead genre, comes The Revenant.Here, they combine the two, i.e. sentient 'zombies' who don't just groan around the place eating human flesh, but instead, only come to 'life' at night and desire human blood, ala vampires.Amazingly, it works.The Revenant tells the story about an American soldier killed in Iraq. He's shipped back to the States, only to wake up in his coffin as a zombie-vampire (or Revenant, as per the title). After he's suitable freaked out his best friend by coming back from the dead, they set about one self-destructive adventure after the next, picking off local drug dealers to feed their nocturnal blood lust.Although I found everything about the film really good - great acting, believable (and not totally dumb) characters, excellent zombie make-up and gore, I noticed the film is billed as a 'horror comedy.' Well, I get the horror aspect, but didn't find that much to laugh at. Okay, there were a couple of bits that made me chuckle. But then a few lines in Terminator 2 were also there for humour's sake, but I doubt many people consider T2 a comedy.Anyway, bottom line, if you haven't had your fill of the undead yet, try this little gem, it's actually pretty good (plus it's 'cult' enough for you to impress all your friends with a zombie/vampire movie that they probably have never heard of!).
thomaswinter If you watch this movie for the first time its quite funny. Its pretty much like Dead Heads, two stupid zombie friends doing stupid zombie things while trying to cover up they're actually zombies and not just regular stupid people. Not as funny as Shaun of the Dead, which is quite awesome, but still very watch-able and entertaining. Some scenes just feel like fillers to reach a 90 minute movie, though. And some of the jokes are really lame. So I'd say its a nice movie to watch with a friend once and then just forget about it, I wouldn't buy the DVD or anything. Just stream it on Amazon or something. Still I'm happy the zombie genre produces some more medium quality movies and not just low budget b-trash-leavemealone-movie kind of stuff.
aleugene I had no expectations other than wanting a time-killing zombie film to watch. How could there be films that are well-done but passed over? Well, this is one of them. What this film has is exactly what most films don't, especially among the spate of overblown summer films this year. While it's slow-moving at times, all the extra time is spent on genuine, realistic character development, a too rare exercise sometimes. Surrounding some of the most original zombie movie treatments are reactions to unreal circumstances that ring true. At one time funny, it is also part snarky, sinister and visually dark. Some images are hair raising. The camera work is consistently striking and playful, matched by well thought-out dialog and street-wise sensibilities. The diatribe by the black gang member about race and it's implications is dead on ridiculous. I've heard it in real life. For all of the film, I was convinced that the writer believed in these possibilities and made sure they worked beyond theory. Buried among some really creepy scenes are clever snippets of sarcasm and non-pc banter. And none of it comes off as insulting. It's almost a realistic ghetto version of a monster film. No one character in this film is allowed to escape, either. It's kind of beautiful, in many ways, a real love project that probably suffered from its title. I won't give away anything here but what happens to the "cholo" who robs them is creepy as all hell, even stunning. The one weakness is the girlfriend's acting which seemed unconvincing. Granted, crying on cue is difficult, but her acting seemed untrained. It's a minor weakness though. And none of this film comes across as cheaply done. I'm sure this will become a bigger favorite over time. George Romero could never achieve this.