This movie is one of those obscure films that most people in the world probably have never seen and probably should not bother trying to find unless they like to laugh at poor cinema. It is akin to the film Laserblast, only that one is more well known due to the fact it was played more back in the day and would later become riffed on the cult television show Mystery Science Theater 3000. This one, too, could have been on that show and made a rather good episode as it is just ripe for the riffing! Instead, it became a film most have never seen or heard of even though there are several decent actors in this one including Jean Michael Vincent, Raymond Burr, Martin Landeau and Cybil Shepard. However, they could not make up for the fact that this movie seems to almost have not discernible plot...

The story, what little there is, starts out with two kids and a prospector encountering strange lights in the sky and they are seemingly imbued with something or another. The little girl was just passing through, but the little boy lived in town. Years later, they are all grown up and in the town where the encounter took place strange occurrences have happened as cows have been mutilated. The boy is now a deputy and drinking beer while pursuing annoying young folk driving while the girl now works for her dad's vague institute that seems to be exploring space and possible aliens, but are not experts on cow mutilations. Well the prospector is now wielding a lightsaber and carving up cows for some purpose and soon the former kids will have to confront him!

The film seems like it was trying to do both Star Wars and Close Encounters with a touch of horror thrown into the mix. It could've worked, but it takes itself way too seriously. They needed more of the horror element as watching drunk deputy and pretty new girl in town interact throughout the movie got very tiresome. So instead of being entertaining like those two movies, it is only really entertaining as a film to be made fun of as you are watching it unfold.

Graydon Clark. We have him to thank for Satan's Cheerleaders, Without Warning, Wacko and many more.

Here he brings together Cybil Shepherd and Jan-Michael Vincent as a couple that were taken by aliens as children. Yes, the romance is anything but torrid, but sometimes, we work with what we've got.

While stopping at a gas station late one night, a young girl on vacation and a local boy are taken by a UFO.

Twenty-five years later, that boy is the sheriff of that town, Wayne (Vincent). There have been several cattle mutilations in town, which brings Jennifer (Shepherd),a scientist in to help. Of course, she's the girl from the beginning.

It turns out that the cows are getting all messed up because the aliens also visited a prospector (Vincent Schiavelli!) who has been using an energy knife to slice up the bovines and send them into space using a teleporter the extraterrestrials left behind.

Somehow, this movie was able to acquire the star power of Martin Landau, Raymond Burr and Neville Brand. In her book Cybill Disobedience: How I Survived Beauty Pageants, Elvis, Sex, Bruce Willis, Lies, Marriage, Motherhood, Hollywood, and the Irrepressible Urge to Say What I Think, Shepherd said that the cast was "a rather sad group of actors, all trying to resurrect our diminished careers. Raymond Burr read his lines off a TelePrompter."

But wait - there's more! Darby Hinton, yes, the star of Malibu Express, also makes an appearance, as does Playboy Playmate of the Month for January 1977 Susan Kiger, who also appeared in Andy Sidaris' Seven.

Two children who grow up to be Jan-Michael Vincent and Cybill Shepherd have a close encounter with an alien spaceship. Twenty five years later they reunite as some strange things are happening in the small New Mexico town where Vincent is now part of law enforcement and Shepherd is now a scientist.

The Return is a ripoff of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind only it was done on the budget that that science fiction classic spent on its catering. We learn here that Raymond Burr who plays Shepherd's father was so bored with the whole thing that he read his lines off a teleprompter. I can't blame him, the whole thing bored me as well.

The term worm hole had not been given to us courtesy of Star Trek - The Next Generation. But that's what Burr and Shepherd and the rest of the scientists have monitored and that's why Shepherd is back to investigate. I still haven't figured out just what it was there for.

The rest of the cast took Raymond Burr's somnambulist approach to the film. It can put anyone to sleep even the players.