Ever since James Cameron asked the eternal question, “can I get away with ripping off an episode of The Outer Limits?”, time travel movies have followed a fairly set rote; man comes back from apocalypse, finds Partner/Scientist/Chosen One/Tits McGuffin, fights things through a combination of True Guts and Slow-Motion, and saves the day/saves the future/sets up a time-paradox you can drive a lorry through. So, after picking up and reading the back of the 2002 Takashi Yamazaki directed Returner, I was expecting more of the same but with a bit of gun-fu.
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Returner (2002)
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The chances are that, based purely on the title of this film, you’ve already made up your mind if you are interested in this film or not, as no one comes up with “Humanoids from the Deep” if they want to make things enigmatic and surprising. Names like that are meant to evoke a certain set of feelings, much like how these kinds of films are designed to evoke a set of emotions whilst watching them. It’s not meant to be smart; it’s meant to be an obvious signal of a specific kind of entertainment. It pretty much screams “this will be puerile and base, in the most amazing of ways!” and then holds out an open can of beer and a smoke to entice you in. The good news is that this film delivers on those promises, the only problem is that it’s intercut with two other films that manage to do both more and less.
If there is one thing zombie movie fans love, it’s watching the living being eaten alive to sate the hellish appetites of the undead hordes and their own, carnal sensibilities. If there is a second thing they like, it’s often having an interesting backstory behind the film and bit of vintage to its creation. This is possibly it’s due to the production tribulations and copyright problems of the touchstone work of the genre, The Night Of The Living Dead (NOTLD), or maybe it’s because, until recently, aficionados were considered the creepy cousins to more wholesome things like Vampires, Werewolves, and serial killers and needed something else to talk about between themselves once the delicate and nuanced plot variations of “and then they ate everyone!” have been chewed over. Whatever it is, 1988’s Flesh Eater (AKA Zombie Nosh and Revenge Of The Living Zombies) wears it’s rather curious pedigree on it’s chest, like the proud winner of Six Degrees of George A Romeo, due to being Produced, Directed, Written by, Edited, and Staring The Bill Hinzman!
Trash or Treasure 