Elegant horror in 'Return'

THE RETURN — ** 1/2 — Sarah Michelle Gellar, Adam Scott; rated PG-13 (violence); Carmike 12 and Ritz 15 Theaters; Century Theatres 16 (Sandy); Century Theatres 16 (South Salt Lake); Cinemark 24 at Jordan Landing.

It's easy to write off Sarah Michelle Gellar as today's "Queen of Scream," "the new Jamie Leigh Curtis." But whatever the limitations of her post-"Buffy" career, she's making interesting choices among the horror scripts she's offered.

Case in point — "The Return," a simple ghost story that is, for all its faults, elegantly told and compellingly acted.

Gellar plays Joanne, a young trucking saleswoman who lives out of a suitcase. "If I keep moving forward, nothing bad will catch me," she tells a friend.

She avoids her home state, Texas, for reasons that have nothing to do with growing up in the chain-saw massacre belt.

But ambition, and the need to close a deal, take her back. And spooky things start happening, as soon as she's off the interstate. She sees a strange man walking the road in the dark. Memories of a car wreck haunt her. A 1970 Dodge Charger keeps following her. Her car radio fuzzes out and comes back playing all Patsy Cline, all the time. When even the CD player warbles "Sweet Dreams," she kind of freaks.

But not completely. Joanna has issues. She's had hallucinations and bouts of self-mutilation, before. Dad (Sam Shepard) isn't much help. He's still in mourning over her lost mom.

A small town beckons. So much there is familiar. Too familiar, even though she doesn't know the place at all. She picks the creepiest inn to stay at, and the dive-iest dive (The Red Bar) to get a drink. She recognizes one of the roughest looking guys in the joint (a not very compelling Peter O'Brien). And at every turn, in every mirror, she sees things that past experience tell her aren't there.

"The Return" is one of those horror movies that relies both on the unseen terror, and "technical" gotchas. The code, cracked in a score of earlier scare-fests, is that the right combination of sudden cuts, sound effects (and their volume) and music will make you jump, and put the hairs on the back of your neck in the full upright and locked position.

Director and co-writer Asif Kapadia, who did a moody, cerebral feudal India chase and sword-fight thriller, "The Warrior," weaves a decent yarn in a splendidly spooky atmosphere, even if the script suggests its solution far earlier than he would like to believe.

At 85 minutes, there's barely enough time for this one to lose its way, though it does. The red herrings in this mystery are crimson herrings — too obvious.

And Gellar isn't really growing as an actress through era in her career. But as she sprints from menace, real or imagined, gulps in fear or bugs her eyes out one more time, this much is as obvious as the black dye in her hair: At least she's aging into a dead ringer for Marisa Tomei.

"The Return" is rated PG-13 for violence, terror and disturbing images. Running time: 85 minutes.