isobellefox Long a fan of HP Lovecraft, Thomas Ligotti, Laird Barron, Christopher Slatsky, Matthew Bartlett, TE Grau, and a number of other weird fiction writers, I have also long been disappointed in the lack of good weird fiction in film. Too often the stories are adapted to remove what makes them special in the first place: the weirdness, the nihilism, the cosmic perspective. Happily, They Remain retains the weirdness and takes its time building the stifling and creepy atmosphere required to deliver it. I really enjoyed this, and I hope to see more like it. Its not perfect. Its not for everyone. But in general, it is a victory for those who know and enjoy the pleasures of the strange.

p_neve How this has scored so high and many of the reviews I do not know. Slow is not a good enough word for it, it makes me go and find a cult to join and they can put me out of my misery. But seriously I think many of the reviews are influenced by the partaking of huge amounts of spirited fruit juices, then only you are able to make it work. 2 is for the pretty scenery

jakewoodward-75546 I can see why some people don't like this movie. It takes work, it demands your attention and makes nothing easy. You can't check your phone while watching this, you've got to let yourself just be with it. It's quiet and not "scary" but it is unsettling. What the hell is going on here? Is this science fiction, is it contemporary? The film is self-consciously oblique which I enjoyed; I enjoyed trying to fill in the blanks and I've enjoyed the moments when it has popped back in my head that maybe this is what something or other meant. This is one that you will have to decide for yourself; don't let anyone tell you you will or won't enjoy it, but if you like the Speculative and Weird, you should see this and make up your own mind!

S. Soma I found THEY REMAIN to be absolutely god-awful to the point of being unwatchable. Unfortunately, because of the basic genre of THEY REMAIN, it's very difficult for me to differentiate between instances of poor workmanship and the fundamental nature of the movie simply being subject matter and artistic expressions that I am innately incapable of connecting with. So, to be absolutely fair, you should take my observations, and indeed my entire review, with a grain of salt; it is entirely possible that there are people out there who might view aspects of THEY REMAIN as high art whereas I view the identical aspects as steaming, reeking manure.The plot of THEY REMAIN is uncomplicated. Two scientists have been sent out on location to study some woods by a corporation wishing to know if there is, in those woods, "a previously uncharacterized element, genetic, environmental or otherwise. One that might change the way we view our relationship to the natural world." Essentially, a Manson-family like cult apparently went crazy and killed a lot of people, and there is also some suggestion that a CSI team subsequently sent out to study the area also went crazy. The corporation wants to know if there's something about the area causing people and animals to go crazy apparently with an eye towards profiting from it, although how they would do so is specifically never made clear, or even vaguely comprehensible. The pair of scientists live in temporary scientific-looking structures and make sorties out into the forest to gather pictures and samples to analyze. At a glacial pace, the two scientists evidently go insane themselves. Roll ending credits.Here's a partial list of the things that made this movie particularly unenjoyable for me:1. There's no actual music in this movie as such. What passes for music is an endless succession of synthesizer-generated noises accompanying specific scenes. Most often they are completely tuneless and repeat over and over and over and over and over again as long as the scene continues. The noises themselves are not particularly interesting or innovative or sophisticated; pretty much any fool with a synthesizer could easily create them and loop them incessantly. I cannot claim that this is a result of poor workmanship because I'm pretty certain these fingernail-on-a-chalkboard repetitive noises were absolutely intentional and aimed to create discomfort in the viewer. Not fear, not apprehension, not anticipation... discomfort.2. There are no protagonist or antagonist as such. Therefore there is no nominal conflict as such. There's just these woods that have an unpleasant and deleterious effect on people and then the two people (the two scientists) who experience it THIS time. The two scientists, which you would sort of assume are our protagonists, aren't really. Throughout the entire picture they operate at some level of conflict with each other (and their boss and the words and life and air and...), at first just light bickering and then increasing as the "insanity" progresses.3. Every element of the movie is characterized by no attention to any sort of detail whatsoever. It's just a collection of crap thrown at the viewer to make of what they will. There is no detail or specificity or accuracy about absolutely ANYTHING. Throughout the movie, for example, there are collections of latitude/longitude readings that prove out to be around Salem New York and crossing into The Green Mountain and Finger Lakes national forest area with altitude changes of as much as 3000 feet. The male character regularly jots out to check the cameras and take samples on hikes that would actually cover as much as 72 miles over rough and mountainous terrain and apparently does it all in a few hours. At one point in the movie he "calls for pickup" by helicopter when he is surrounded by roads. The male character finds a Winchester repeating rifle in the forest that he claims is "very old" and dates back to the 1800s. But the gun itself looks like it just came off the shelf at Walmart's. If it was 150 years or more old, having sat out on the ground in the forest all that time, it would be a rusted lump barely recognizable as a gun at all.4. The vast majority of the movie are shots where the actors are just staring blankly at leaves or trees or nothing. Cut scenes with trippy hippie types killing people are interwoven with no explanation. Insanity is portrayed as selectively blurred images or bizarre dreams or color distortions or surrealistic images of people standing around, all with no explanations.5. Nothing about anything is ever explained. No causes, no explanations for behavioral changes, nothing. Just unpleasant people behaving unpleasantly in unpleasant circumstances.6. THEY REMAIN has its philosophical roots tied to H.P. Lovecraft style storytelling. Its ill defined, nauseating presentation, its every scene and word and sound intended to make you uncomfortable but otherwise bereft of traditional storytelling elements are all straight out of the H.P. Lovecraft playbook.Again, it's entirely possible that people who are of the opinion that H.P. Lovecraft wrote good horror might actually like this movie. Personally, if you're a member of that group, and you really want to experience a top-notch, nauseating H.P. Lovecraft -like experience, OD on Ambien first, turn it up loud, then sit back and enjoy.