The Return of the Living Dead

This movie is like very little else out there. It's a zombie comedy that isn't a full-on splatterfest like most, doesn't offer some overly humorous social satire (there's subtle jabs at Agent Orange and Nazis), and doesn't have a high-concept premise (for a zombie movies that is). What you have is dry as hell, with punk rockers (timely for the time - Repo Man meets zombies?), Nazi morticians smoking pipes and listening to their Walkman while embalming, and Quigley nudity for its own sake, but characters are in on it and equally celebrate and scold her. It has iconic scenes and quotes though I'm sure a lot of people have no idea they're actually from this.

It just works - it's funny, weird, creepy, gory, and always entertaining. A hard mix to pull off and one that happens with success very rarely. It's always said that there's a fine line between horror and comedy - the pros can straddle it like a daring high-wire act and this is one of them. If only the ending weren't so abruptly anti- climactic and there were a few more naked zombie Quigley kill scenes it'd be a perfect cult classic.

Gotta love the very serious Suicide while naked Quigley grinds on him: "No one understands me, you know that." "You think this is a f***in' costume? This is a way of life." "Hey, what's wrong with you, man? Show some f***ing respect for the dead, will ya?" All this because he was called a "spooky motherf***er."

"Return of the Living Dead" is an often hilarious, often frightening, often disgusting, and always entertaining horror comedy. The cast is great, the dialogue is snappy and very quotable, and the special effects still hold up very well, nearly 20 years after the film's release. Fans of the horror genre, 1980s buffs, or just folks who enjoy something different occasionally will most likely get a kick out of it.

10/10

To this day, I can't believe Dan O'Bannon got away with using "The Living Dead" in his title. George Romero should have sued, and probably did. Nevertheless, this is a classic horror comedy straight out of the 1980s, with gruesome brain-devouring zombies running riot in a small town. Actually, due to the movie's modest budget, the zombies run around a small number series of sets, consisting of a warehouse, both inside and outside, a bridge and a mortuary, inside and outside. There also are a couple of shots dealing with Army personnel. An Abbott and Costello-type pair unleashes a government-developed gas that revives the dead. Even dead parts. A warehouse exec, a mortuary owner and several daffy young people end up in a fight for their lives, while a series of EMTs and police arriving on the scene are quickly dispatched by the ravenous zombies. The hammy acting is strictly from hunger, the dialog largely improvised, and the clumsy blocking and static photography (mostly medium shots) are like something from a 1932 talkie. But the zombie attacks are ferocious and go way beyond anything Romero attempted in "Night." Also, zombies getting on the ambulance and police radios to order up more help in their sepulchral voices is beyond hilarious. You also have the ravishing Scream Queen of her day, Leanna Quigley, spending most of screen time nekkid. It also is a riot to see familiar grocery store hawker James Karen in a prominent role here. Plus, much has been said over the years about the individual hired to play the rotting basement zombie, and he is indeed absolutely marvelous. Good for a laugh, and great for trotting out every Halloween.

I love this film to living death ... Every actor got the right part, and they all got the part right. High camp, higher parody, positively hilarious scenes so well set up that a mere facial gesture delivers the punchline, sometimes only a few beats of music delivers. In the midst of all this ripping off of Romero's "Night of the Living Dead", it borders on worship of its inspiration. Pathos holds hands with hilarity, genuinely creepy scenes bleed into high gear humor. I haven't found a misstep. There is a high quotient of "Oh s**t" scenes and they all work. The undraped Quigley is neither gratuitous or prurient; just imagine the movie without her character; loses much. This is a delicious, feverish living dead romp that plays out to one crackerjack musical score. Everything meshes, everything works. How do you fault a film that gets it all right? This title will survive a long long time.

ROTLD is one of the rare cases where horror meets comedy to good effect. With some classic lines like "you gotta hit the brain" and "watch your mouth kid if you like this job", this film works because it doesn't rely solely on gore or stupidity; the script is very well written.

ROTLD pays homage to George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" but veers away from the slow lumbering zombies of the '68 classic, and instead gives us "the original" super zombies (ie before 28 days later or Dawn of the Dead remake) that are not so easily dealt with! This proves to be an interesting problem for the script to resolve which I think it does with style by the end of the movie.

The characters are a little predictable and one dimensional except for the lead pair who are introduced at the start of the movie, but that's perhaps the only flaw. What I really like about this movie is that, whilst not entirely a gorefest, it still manages to kick-ass because of the flawless plot. By this I mean that there a few scenarios where you find yourself saying "that's just dumb" or "they'd never do that" etc, which is very rare nowadays in the horror/sci-fi genre. Dramas & thrillers etc get an easy job of it because all they have to do is convince us that their reality is real-life. Horror on the other hand needs to convince that the unreality it portrays is what is real-life, and that's not always an easy task.

ROTLD is funny, sick, clever and above all entertaining if you can stomache some pretty twisted content. Personally, I love it.