Without exactly revolutionising the form, Semans’s debut delivers an unsettling tale of psychological torment and the kind of creeping dread and shocking climax that hallmarks some of the best horror.
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Resurrection is a brilliant thriller that rests on the actors’ remarkable performances without the need for typical thriller elements nor the need to resort to torture porn.
It has the feeling of a short film stretched beyond its limit, with all that early tension dissipating, and while there’s certainly something jolting about the gonzo violence in the finale, it’s otherwise ineffectual.
The Hollywood Reporter by Caryn James
Writer and director Andrew Semans puts Hall in every scene of this modest but effective thriller, and she comes through with a stunning, charismatic performance.
Slashfilm by Chris Evangelista
The overall experience is chilling to the extreme. The type of chill that seeps its way into your bones and leaves you unprotected and unbalanced.
Semans’ film stands out for how purposefully it seems to walk the line between schlocky crap and serious cinema.
Delivering a happy ending that feels like a cheap way out of the story, Resurrection may initially shake one to their core, but by the finale it devolves into little more than a diabolically outrageous genre outing for two great actors.
The film is one of the more intrinsically frightening evocations of a traumatized mind since Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.
Resurrection is emotionally searing, wildly unhinged and maybe even a little batshit crazy. However, as anchored by its two fiercely committed and convincing lead performances (Rebecca Hall and Tim Roth), a menacingly disquieting tone, and a frightening ambiguity about a disintegrating mental state, Resurrection is a deeply distressing and compelling drama that will shock and shake you to your core.
Semans pushes Margaret into potentially preposterous narrative terrain, but Hall’s total commitment to her character’s growing mania helps ground the proceedings, no matter how outlandish the plotting becomes.