“The Revenant”
Very Good (3 stars)
Rated R for graphic violence, pervasive profanity, drug use, sexuality and graphic nudity.
Running time: 117 minutes
Studio: Putrefactory Limited
Distributor: Paladin/Lightning Entertainment
Second Lieutenant Bart Gregory (David Anders) was so full of life that it’s hard for his loved ones to believe that he actually died while serving his country over in Iraq. Even after his body arrives back in the States, his girlfriend, Janet (Louise Griffith), still states that, “None of this seems real.”
At least the grieving gal found a shoulder to cry on in the dearly departed’s pal, Joey (Chris Wylde). And it’s not long before the two start sleeping together, since they couldn’t possibly predict what was about to happen next.
For, a month after Bart perished, he miraculously rises from the grave and returns to town where a nurse named Mathilda (Jacy King) snap-diagnoses that he must be a revenant, meaning a person who returns from the dead in corporeal form. She suggests that chopping off the zombie’s head is the only way to put his soul to rest permanently.
But the stupefied Joey can’t bring himself to finish off his buddy. Instead, against his better judgment, he takes the rejuvenated dude in as a roommate.
However, Bart soon begins exhibiting the ghoulish urge to drain humans of blood, since he’ll otherwise decompose and rot. Joey tries to suppress that evil impulse by holding up a crucifix and throwing holy water at him, but none of those traditional measures seem to work.
Given that the guy is going to sink his fangs into somebody’s neck anyway, the two eventually strike a compromise whereby Bart is allowed to roam around at night as a crime-fighting vigilante vampire. The rationale is that he can satiate his bloodlust while simultaneously cleaning the city’s streets of violent perpetrators.
Thus unfolds “The Revenant,” a campy horror comedy resting on a cleverly executed premise. Well-written with a talented cast operating on a modest budget, the entertaining picture’s primary flaw is that it drags on for about a half-hour past a perfectly plausible ending.
The scary movie that refused to die!
