Lately I’ve been bored to death by found footage films. I’m just… done for now. The last one I decided to give a chance was The Remaining because I never had the chance to see it when it was in theaters during the last quarter of 2014. “Please be good,” I thought going into my viewing, “Or else this is going to get ugly.” Here’s my thoughts now having watched.
The Remaining is written and directed by Donnie Darko and Amityville: Awakening producer Casey La Scala with “Days of Our Lives” star Chris Dowling. Cast members include Alexa Pena-Vega (Repo The Genetic Opera, “The Tomorrow People”), Shaun Sipos (Texas Chainsaw 3D, “The Vampire Diaries”), Johnny Pacar (Playback, “American Dreams”), John Pyper-Ferguson (“Caprica,” “Burn Notice”), Italia Ricci, Bryan Dechart, Liz E. Morgan, Erin Murphy, and Kim Pacheco.
The Remaining follows, “A group of close friends who gather for a wedding, but the celebration is shattered by a series of cataclysmic events and enemies foretold by biblical end-times prophecies. The survivors face a horrifying, uncertain future as they scramble for safety, but as their world collapses around them in chaos and terror, will they choose real life through faith or just try to survive?”
The first thing that struck me about this movie was… From the beginning I genuinely liked al the characters. Often in horror films, there is one or two people that you dislike, or an entire cast that you hate and root for their demise. That is definitely not the case here. Great writing from La Scala and Dowling makes all of the characters redeemable and in return viewers are able to connect with them in a more emotional way than just, “I hope they die!” Even when their minor defects or personal agendas come to the forefront, you can’t help but to invest your support in them. This all makes for an overall better cinematic experience because each character will make you feel a different emotion. Speaking of characters, my favorite was Sam (played by Liz E. Morgan). Sam was written like an awkward “Resident Evil” video game survivor and I loved Liz’s performance with bringing her to life.
At the beginning of this review I mentioned that the movie is a found footage film. Well, I’m happy to say that only a small portion of the story is told through found footage. I estimated it in my notes to only be about 15%. It bounces back and forth between found footage and narrative a few times, but as soon as the apocalypse happens it’s mostly handled as a normal feature. Which is good because La Scala and Dowling’s depiction of The Rapture is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. Dead bodies left behind. Bibles and holy objects turning to ash. Natural disasters. Demonic creatures thrashing people through the hallway. It’s intense and it’s important that it was shown in all of its glory than in the confines of a hand-held camera.
For some reason, I drew a connection between The Remaining and Rec 3. Both films take place at weddings and have now made me paranoid about attending someone’s nuptials. The big difference between the two in terms of pace is that The Remaining starts strong within the first twelve minutes where Rec 3 took a while to get to the action. With The Remaining, I wasn’t expecting the death and Hellfire to begin nearly as fast as it did. It was another pleasant surprise, and it’s another reason why a potential buyer should go pick up this film. It’s going to reel you in from the very beginning and keep you in interested all the way through. Sure, there’s a lot of crazy shit – planes falling out of the sky, kids dying everywhere, demonic creatures harpooning people through the chest with their tails – but what’s so great about the action is that it helps to build suspense in a big way. Things aren’t always screaming, bleeding, and crying, but when it happens and it’s all over with you’re left thinking, “Oh my god what’s going to happen next?!”
It’s actually kind of perplexing to me that this movie didn’t receive a bigger release. Who the Hell was in charge of that? While it was in theaters, The Remaining managed to gross $1,200,000 in ticket sales in America despite only being released in 25-85 theaters at a time. I don’t know what the film’s overall budget was, but I think it could have exceeded it and made much more had it received a wider release to even 30, 40, or 50 more theaters. Such a great cast and script. Such a great production team and great production value. Such great suspense and horror. It’s even very subtle in the way it handles religious, social, and emotional themes. It’s really a shame that more people haven’t had a chance to view it. I’m trying to think of flaws, but I can’t think of any! Only thing I caught as an error was that cell phones and televisions weren’t working, but somehow ipads had internet access?
Please, please, please do not believe the star rating on IMDB and Rotten Tomato. The Remaining is the full package and has everything you’d want to see in a horror flick about The Rapture. I’m Agnostic and I didn’t even care about the religions elements because the plot was so good! It truly deserves to be seen and has tremendous rewatchability. I’m rating it a 9.5 out of 10.
