This
is why we really shouldn’t demonize pharmaceutical companies. We might really
need them sometime, especially in the post-zombie future. Medical science has
developed a cure for newly infected zombies. Naturally, there is a catch. It
depends on a protein extracted from the spinal columns of full blown, incurable
walking dead and must be administered shortly after contamination. However, as
treatment improves, there are fewer sources of the serum and more cases
requiring it. This leads to an inevitable problem of scarcity in Manuel Carballo’s
The Returned (trailer here), which opens in Los
Angeles this Friday.
You
would think they would hardly notice an influx of zombies in Canada, but there
is indeed a rabble rousing crowd of fear mongers making life difficult for Dr.
Kate. She is the lead physician for her hospital’s “Returned” ward and a
prominent fundraiser for synthesizing the serum. She also happens to be romantically
linked with Alex Green, a Returned musician, whom she met while overseeing his
treatment.
With
stockpiles of the protein growing scarce, the mob is turning on the Returned
and those who treat them. Things get really bad when a band of radicals attack
her ward, making off with confidential Returned files. Already exhausting their black market
options, the doctor and her hipster patient will soon be forced to take
desperate measures.
Clearly,
the market for zombie-related entertainment remains undiminished if even the
post-zombie scenario of BBC America’s In the Flesh is subject to the old “homage” treatment. At least series
writer-creator Dominic Mitchell gives viewers a fair number of old school
zombie flashbacks. In contrast, The
Returned is distinctly light in the shuffling horde department, but it
takes its message of tolerance painfully seriously.
As
a zombie film almost entirely without zombies, The Returned is bound to disappoint the majority of zombie junkies.
Still, Emily Hampshire and Kris Holden-Reid make a ridiculously attractive
couple, who show flashes of chemistry in their scenes together. They are actually
reasonably compelling when navigating the ethically ambiguous terrain of
post-zombie (or maybe not so post) life.