Writer/director Philip Gelatt first encountered Laird Barron's writing in "2008 or 2009". After reading the story "-30-" in Barron's collection Occultation and Other Stories, he became interested in adapting it. In terms of casting, Gelatt described the process as follows: "I wanted to find actors who had, in their own personalities, something that felt true to these characters."
Reception
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 57% approval rating with an average score of 5.7/10, based on 28 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "They Remain relies on rich atmosphere to effectively establish a sense of creeping dread that's almost enough to cover for its nagging narrative deficiencies." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 49 out of 100 based on nine critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
Eric Kohn of IndieWire graded the film a B−. Alex McLevy of The A.V. Club also gave the film a B−. Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com awarded the film two stars.