"To hardened veterans of ghoul movies, however, a sort of connoisseurship develops. "Return" is a movie with some nice, droll opening scenes and the obligatory horrible climax."
-Roger Ebert
Ya know, i never really meshed well with the whole punk scene. The music, the fashion, the level of anger for the man, the movies, the music, not really my bag. Looks like fun though.
The Return of the Living Dead is a 1985 American comedy horror film written and directed by Dan O'Bannon in his directorial debut, and starring Clu Gulager, James Karen, Thom Matthews, and Don Calfa. The film tells the story of how a warehouse owner, accompanied by his two employees, mortician friend and a group of teenage punks, deal with the accidental release of a horde of unkillable, brain-hungry zombies onto an unsuspecting town. The film has its roots in a novel by John Russo also called Return of the Living Dead. It currently holds a 91% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with a rating average of 7.2/10 based on 43 reviews.
When Russo and George A. Romero parted ways after their 1968 film Night of the Living Dead, Russo retained the rights to any titles featuring Living Dead while Romero was free to create his own series of sequels, beginning with Dawn of the Dead. That means technically speaking, this movie is made by the fun uncle of the entire modern zombie genre. But you get the sense this movie is sort of shitting on the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, which makes me wonder if there was some kind of messy separation between the 2...
Before I talk about this movie's parade of goofs and gaffes, I want to chat a bit about the differences between Russo and Romero zombies.
Zombies are fully self-aware of what's happening to them: you are in constant pain, feeling yourself rot away with every step, even able to talk just enough to goof on the living. Certainly would make things a lot more tragic and disturbing in a different movie, but this movie is really just here to goof about it.
Zombies are specifically after your brain: Better than Tylenol PM apparently, human brains are the only thing that numb the pain. if they eat anything else, it's just a... snack for fun I guess
Headshots don't cut it: You really have to go all evil dead with it for these zombies to actually die. bad news considering they aren't Romero-slow, and another idea that could have been more tragic in a different movie.
despite those briefly mentioned elements of tragedy, This movie is mostly just a wacky-ass good time. Full frontal nudity sexy graveyard dancing, oodles of nasty practical gore, all of it before the 20-minute mark. It's a fully self-aware B movie that never takes itself that seriously (for better or for worse) And it is more than a worthy edition of the classic cannon of zombie films.
Its feels kind of lazy for me just to say "This movie is a dang good time" but honestly it could have been this whole review.
9/10
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