''They Remain'' is a 2018 American

thriller film Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre. ...

written and directed by

Philip Gelatt Philip Gelatt is an American screenwriter, film director, producer and video game writer. He is best known for his work on the animated film, '' The Spine of Night'' and the Netflix animated series, ''Love, Death & Robots''. Life and career Gelat ...

and starring

Rebecca Henderson Rebecca Henderson (born June 4, 1980) is a Canadian actress. She is known for her portrayal of Lizzy on the Netflix series ''Russian Doll (TV series), Russian Doll'' and for her roles in independent films ''Appropriate Behavior'', ''They Remain ...

and

William Jackson Harper William Fitzgerald Harper (born February 8, 1980), known professionally as William Jackson Harper, is an American actor and playwright. He gained acclaim for his role as Chidi Anagonye in the NBC comedy series ''The Good Place'' (2016–2020), f ...

. It is based on

Laird Barron Laird Samuel Barron (born March 5, 1970) is an American author and poet, much of whose work falls within the horror, noir, or horror noir and dark fantasy genres. He has also been the managing editor of the online literary magazine ''Melic Re ...

's short story ''-30-''.

Cast

as Jessica *

as Keith *Malcolm Mills as Pilot *Jordan Douglas Smith as Rudi "Tex" Roos (voice) *Charlies Lavoie as Cult Father

Production

Writer/director Philip Gelatt first encountered Laird Barron's writing in "2008 or 2009". After reading the story "-30-" in Barron's collection ''Occultation and Other Stories'', he became interested in adapting it. In terms of casting, Gelatt described the process as follows: "I wanted to find actors who had, in their own personalities, something that felt true to these characters."

Reception

The

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

reported approval rating with an average score of , based on reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "''They Remain'' relies on rich atmosphere to effectively establish a sense of creeping dread that's almost enough to cover for its nagging narrative deficiencies."

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which uses a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

, assigned a score of 49 out of 100 based on nine critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Eric Kohn of IndieWire graded the film a B−. Alex McLevy of ''

The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was created in ...

'' also gave the film a B−. Brian Tallerico of

RogerEbert.com ''RogerEbert.com'' is an American film review website that archives reviews written by film critic Roger Ebert for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' and also shares other critics' reviews and essays. The website, underwritten by the ''Chicago Sun-Times ...

awarded the film two stars.

References

External links

* * {{rotten-tomatoes, they_remain American thriller films Films based on short fiction 2010s English-language films 2010s American films