‘They Remain’ Directed by Phillip Gelatt

Review by Peter Belsito

This film develops its story and characters in a leisurely manner. Meaning that the story meanders as an ominous tension develops in an interesting way. This dramatic pressure thus convincingly descends upon the endangered weakling characters and slowly an overbearing mood of dread takes over as the film moves toward its grim conclusion.

It’s about people going into the woods and possibly going insane, and it feels like it may have been made by people who went into the woods and possibly went insane.

They Remain looks gorgeous enough to sustain, but it slips through your fingers every time you try to get a hold of it.

Based on Laird Barron’s short story -30-, They Remain is primarily featuring a pair of scientists on the edge of a mysterious woods in which something horrible happened. A cult took up residence in these woods not long ago, and they were a thrill kill cult, the kind that lured victims to the lush greenery only to slice and dice them as a part of their rituals.

An indefinite amount of time later — recent enough to be scared that there may be leftover cultists in the woods but long after the story is off the front page — a corporation sends a pair of scientists to the location to investigate.

What could scientists possibly investigate at the site of horrible murders, you ask?

This question is the most interesting aspect of “They Remain.”

Was the insane sociopathic behavior influenced by these woods, possibly in a biological, definable way?

Or could the sociopathic behavior have left an imprint on the evolution of nature here in a way that can be quantified?

The pair sent to find out answers to these questions are Keith (William Jackson Harper) and Jessica (Rebecca Henderson).

Filling somewhat interesting gender roles, Keith is more of the hunter, the one who goes out to investigate the woods — place cameras, gather samples, look nervously at the trees — while Jessica stays at the camp watching the cameras and testing the samples.

Neither seems to find much of anything, and perhaps that’s part of the reason they start to go crazy.

Or do they?

She says she hears knocks on the door at night but there’s nothing on the security footage.

He has terrifying dreams. She hears whispers. And so on and so on.

It takes a half hour before “They Remain” really gets going and the eventual journey is a pretty one.

When it does get intense, Gelatt resorts to many hallucinatory devices and dream sequences to keep us engaged, and the flashes of naked cult members murdering people are scary.

Keith and Jessica get mad when they hear about a CSI team that was there just before them but then brush off the news that the team might have gone crazy and killed each other.

So curiously here such logical questions aren’t asked or answered by these two, and so they become understandably detached from the developing horror.

I liked the film but the ending needs more clarity and resolution.

Cast: William Jackson Harper as Keith, Rebecca Henderson as Jessica

Director: Philip Gelatt

Writer: Laird Barron

Writer: Philip Gelatt

U.S. Distributor: Paladin

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