Repeat – Review

If science fiction has taught us anything – and surely, it must have done – it’s that nothing bad can ever come of meddling with things beyond man’s ken. Isn’t it?

Yeah, I’m pretty sure it is, and I’ve seen quite a few science-fiction pics. In this one, we’re introduced to Ryan Moore (Tom England), whose marriage is falling apart on account of the strain from coping with the fact that their daughter is missing, presumed (but not confirmed) dead. On the other hand, Ryan is surely about to become the richest and most famous scientist – if not person – on the planet, because he has built a nifty device that can take a swab of DNA and, working just from that, make contact with any dead relative (or just the person’s genetically closest dead relative – it’s unclear). If you can’t work out how these two plotlines are going to converge, you must be almost as foolish as Ryan himself, who not only seeks to peer beyond this mortal veil à la From Beyond or its underrated quasi-remake, Banshee Chapter, but also spends most of the movie two steps behind the average viewer; of the several twists present in this tale, the only ones likely to startle the viewer are those ones that disregard rules already set up earlier on. Still, the big twist, which is of course the most important one – is well-handled, even if it feels like the plot would be better-served if it existed as a short story or, better yet, an episode of The Twilight Zone (or some equivalent anthology).

Director Grant Archer and writer-director Richard Miller make efficient use of their limited budget (this is one of a number of recent films that look all the more impressive when you realise that they were shot over the course of COVID lockdowns) and mostly coax strong performances from their principals, especially England and child actress Ellila-Jean Wood.