Resurrection | |
---|---|
![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Andrew Semans |
Written by | Andrew Semans |
Produced by |
|
Starring | |
Cinematography | Wyatt Garfield |
Edited by | Ron Dulin |
Music by | Jim Williams |
Production companies |
|
Distributed by | |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 103 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $161,472 [1] [2] |
Resurrection is a 2022 American psychological thriller film written and directed by Andrew Semans. It stars Rebecca Hall, Grace Kaufman, Michael Esper, and Tim Roth. The plot follows Margaret (Hall) as she tries to maintain control of her life when an abusive ex-boyfriend (Roth) re-appears in her vicinity. The film was shot in Albany, NY and Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
Resurrection premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2022, and was released in the United States on July 29, 2022, by IFC Films and Shudder. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, who commended Hall's performance in the lead role.
Margaret is a composed, successful businesswoman living in Albany, New York, and single mother to Abbie, who is leaving for college. She has an affair with Peter, her married co-worker. One day, Abbie finds a tooth in her wallet. Margaret misses a call from Abbie, who had a biking accident while drunk. During a work conference, Margaret notices David, a man from her past, also attending. She has a panic attack, runs home and prevents Abbie from seeing a friend.
Margaret has a nightmare about finding a baby in the oven. She becomes irritable and attempts to have sex with Peter at their workplace. She sees David again while shopping and runs off with Abbie, who became wary of her behavior. Margaret confronts David, who claims that "Ben is with me" and smiles, his mouth missing a tooth. Margaret goes to the police, but receives no help. She has new locks installed and purchases a gun.
Margaret explains her relationship with David to a disturbed coworker: she met him at the age of 18 and moved in with him after two weeks. While initially charming, David soon became abusive and controlling. He asked Margaret to give "kindnesses", which were essentially acts of self-harm or personal humiliation, in return for his love. She gave birth to a son named Benjamin, who became his target for jealousy. One day she returned home to find Ben gone but for two fingers; David claimed to have eaten him. Margaret became catatonic and David manipulated her into believing their dead son was alive inside him. She eventually fled to the United States.
Margaret asks David to leave. David continues to manipulate her and implies he is responsible for Abbie's accident. He leaves a key to his hotel room, where Margaret finds Ben's baby blanket. She wakes up the next day lactating.
Margaret learns his routine and plans to kill him at a bench near a river. Abbie and Peter ask her to seek help, but she drives both away. As she tries to kill David, he overpowers her. A delusional and exhausted Margaret hears Ben's cries from David's stomach. David chastises Margaret for trying to kill him and asks for another "kindness": she is to hold a stress position in a public park at night for hours.
The next morning, a scared Abbie runs away from Margaret. Peter, who has been watching Margaret out of worry, confesses his love to her, but she punches and threatens him. David visits Margaret at work and asks her to come to a hotel room. She writes a goodbye letter to Abbie and records a video message.
At another hotel room, David makes Margaret feel his stomach and claims that Ben is moving. Margaret attacks him with knives, ties him up to the bed and slices open his stomach, killing him. She pulls out his intestines, apparently finding a breathing fetus that she holds with care.
Abbie is seen leaving home for college. She lovingly says goodbye to Margaret, who is holding the baby. Abbie thanks her for keeping her safe as Margaret allows her to hold the baby herself. However, Margaret's smile slowly fades away before she gasps in terror.
Andrew Semans' screenplay made the 2019 Black List of most popular unproduced scripts from up-and-coming screenwriters. [3] Producer Alex Scharfman stated "I just could not stop reading it" when he first happened upon the script. [4] [5]
Principal photography took place on location in Albany, New York, in mid-2021 and later in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It was then announced Rebecca Hall and Tim Roth were attached to star in the film. [6] [7]
It premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2022. IFC Films then acquired the North American theatrical and VOD distribution rights to the film, with Shudder taking the first streaming window. [8] It was given a limited theatrical release on July 29, 2022, prior to being released on video on demand on August 5, 2022. [9]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , 81% of 189 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7/10.The website's consensus reads: "Uneven yet steadily absorbing, Resurrection benefits greatly from Rebecca Hall's outstanding work in the leading role." [10] Metacritic , which uses a weighted average , assigned the film a score of 70 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. [11]
The film was screened as part of the American Independents Competition of the 46th Cleveland International Film Festival, [12] [13] held from March 30 to April 9, 2022. [14] It also competed for Official Fantàstic Competition's Best Feature-Length Film at the 55th Sitges Film Festival in October 2022. [15] [16]
Award | Date of ceremony | Category | Recipient(s) | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Critics' Choice Super Awards | March 16, 2023 | Best Actress in a Horror Movie | Rebecca Hall | Nominated | [17] [18] |
Fangoria Chainsaw Awards | May 21, 2023 | Best Limited Release Movie | Resurrection | Nominated | [19] [20] |
Best Lead Performance | Rebecca Hall | Nominated | |||
Jennifer Chambers Lynch is an American filmmaker. The daughter of filmmaker David Lynch, she made her directorial debut with the film Boxing Helena in 1993. Following a troubled production, the film was a critical and commercial failure, with Lynch receiving a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Director. The negative reception to her feature debut and controversy surrounding its release led to Lynch taking a 15-year hiatus from filmmaking.
Rebecca Augusta Miller, Lady Day-Lewis is an American filmmaker and novelist. She is known for her films Angela (1995), Personal Velocity: Three Portraits (2002), The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005), The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009), and Maggie's Plan (2015), all of which she wrote and directed, as well as her novels The Private Lives of Pippa Lee and Jacob's Folly. Miller received the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize for Personal Velocity and the Gotham Independent Film Award for Breakthrough Director for Angela.
Grabbers is a 2012 monster horror comedy film directed by Jon Wright and written by Kevin Lehane. A co-production of Ireland and the United Kingdom, the film stars Richard Coyle, Ruth Bradley, Bronagh Gallagher and Russell Tovey among an ensemble cast of Irish actors.
Livid is a 2011 French supernatural horror film written and directed by Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo. It is their follow-up to the horror film Inside.
Radio Silence Productions is an American film and television production company, founded in 2011 by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, Justin Martinez and Chad Villella. The group is known for the horror films Ready or Not, Scream and Scream VI, as well as their previous work together as Chad, Matt & Rob.
V/H/S is a 2012 American found footage horror anthology film and the first installment in the V/H/S franchise created by Brad Miska and Bloody Disgusting and produced by Miska and Roxanne Benjamin. It features a series of found footage shorts written and directed by Adam Wingard, David Bruckner, Ti West, Glenn McQuaid, Joe Swanberg, and the filmmaking collective Radio Silence.
Brandon Cronenberg is a Canadian director and screenwriter. He is the son of renowned filmmaker David Cronenberg and the brother of Caitlin Cronenberg. He is known for his science fiction horror films Antiviral (2012), Possessor (2020) and Infinity Pool (2023). He has won several accolades for his work.
Christopher Denham is an American actor, screenwriter and director. He is perhaps best known for supporting roles in Shutter Island, Argo, Being the Ricardos and his role in the Sundance Film Festival cult phenomenon, Sound of My Voice, as well as the television series Billions, Shining Girls, opposite Elisabeth Moss and Amazon Prime's Utopia, created by Gillian Flynn.
Olivia Kate Cooke is an English actress. In television, she has starred as Emma Decody in the thriller Bates Motel (2013–2017), Becky Sharp in the period drama Vanity Fair (2018), a spy in the thriller Slow Horses (2022), and Alicent Hightower in the fantasy drama House of the Dragon (2022–present).
Christine is a 2016 American independent biographical psychological drama film directed by Antonio Campos and written by Craig Shilowich. The film stars Rebecca Hall as Christine Chubbuck, a news reporter who was the first person to die by suicide on a live television broadcast. Michael C. Hall, Tracy Letts, Maria Dizzia, J. Smith-Cameron, and John Cullum appear in supporting roles.
Summer of 84 is a 2018 teen horror film directed by François Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell and written by Matt Leslie and Stephen J. Smith. The film stars Graham Verchere, Judah Lewis, Caleb Emery, Cory Gruter-Andrew, Jason Gray-Stanford, Tiera Skovbye, and Rich Sommer.
Possessor is a 2020 science fiction psychological horror film written and directed by Brandon Cronenberg. It stars Andrea Riseborough and Christopher Abbott, with Rossif Sutherland, Tuppence Middleton, Sean Bean, and Jennifer Jason Leigh in supporting roles. Riseborough portrays an assassin who performs her assignments through possessing the bodies of other individuals, but finds herself fighting to control the body of her current host (Abbott).
The Night House is a 2020 supernatural psychological horror film directed by David Bruckner and written by Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski. It stars Rebecca Hall as a widow who discovers a dark secret about the house her recently deceased architect husband built. Other cast members are Sarah Goldberg, Evan Jonigkeit, Stacy Martin, and Vondie Curtis-Hall.
CODA is a 2021 coming-of-age comedy-drama film written and directed by Sian Heder. An English-language remake of the 2014 French-Belgian film La Famille Bélier, it stars Emilia Jones as Ruby Rossi, the child of deaf adults (CODA) and only hearing member of her family, who attempts to help her family's struggling fishing business while pursuing her aspirations to become a singer.
Violation is a 2020 Canadian horror drama film directed and written by Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli. It is the feature film debut of the two directors, who have collaborated on several short films displayed at film festivals worldwide. The plot follows Miriam, who seeks revenge on her brother-in-law after a traumatic incident. The film stars Madeleine Sims-Fewer, Anna Maguire, Jesse LaVercombe, Obi Abili, Jasmin Geljo, and Cynthia Ashperger.
Cha Cha Real Smooth is a 2022 American romantic comedy drama film written, produced, and directed by Cooper Raiff. The plot centers on a 22-year-old college graduate (Raiff) who starts making money as a party starter while he also strikes up a relationship with a 32-year-old mother. The cast also includes Raúl Castillo, Odeya Rush, Evan Assante, Vanessa Burghardt, Brad Garrett, and Leslie Mann.
The Banishing is a 2020 British gothic horror film directed by Christopher Smith, starring Jessica Brown Findlay, John Heffernan, John Lynch and Sean Harris. It premiered at the Sitges Film Festival and London FrightFest Film Festival in October 2020, before being released digitally in the United Kingdom on 26 March 2021. The movie revolves around a haunted-house horror set in the lead up to World War II.
The 2022 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 20 to 30, 2022. Due to COVID-19 pandemic protocol, it was initially intended to be an in-person/virtual hybrid festival, but on January 5, 2022, it was announced that the in-person components would be scrapped in favor of a wholly virtual festival due to the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant. The first lineup of competition films was announced on December 9, 2021.
Pearl is a 2022 American psychological horror film directed, produced and edited by Ti West, co-written by West and Mia Goth, who reprises her role as the title character, and featuring David Corenswet, Tandi Wright, Matthew Sunderland, and Emma Jenkins-Purro in supporting roles. A prequel to X (2022) and the second installment in the X film series, it serves as an origin story for the title villain, whose fervent aspiration to become a movie star led to her committing violent acts on her family's Texas homestead in 1918.
When Evil Lurks is a 2023 supernatural horror film written and directed by Demián Rugna. An international co-production of Argentina and the United States, the film stars Ezequiel Rodríguez, Demián Salomon, Luis Ziembrowski, Silvia Sabater and Marcelo Michinaux.