User reviews

Teen army brat Curt (J. Trevor Edmond) is so in love with wild, sexy punkette Julie (Mindy Clarke) that he decides not to let her untimely death in a motorcylce accident keep them apart. Thankfully his father (Kent McCord) works at a top-secret military lab experimenting on bringing the dead back to life. Curt sneaks in and uses the "Trioxin" gas to revive Julie, then spends the rest of the movie watching helplessly in horror at her mental and physical deterioration and increasing hunger for human flesh!

Having very little to do with the two previous comic RETURN titles helps Part III overcome familiarity, while director Brian Yuzna delivers loads of brain-munching horror without losing sight of the compelling, tragic central romance. Excellent FX work by Steve Johnson and many others, including Julie's amazing transformation from whimpering ghoul to multi-pierced, S&M femme fatale zombie queen.

This film was released in R and unrated versions. Shoot for the latter.

Score: 7 out of 10

Here we have the third installment in the ROTLD series. It is a Romeo and Juliet-ish tale about ill fated love. Curt is an army brat that met a girl that borders on beigg goth. Curt's father is in charge of a project that will use the trioxin to create an army of undead super soldiers. To impress his girlfriend Julie, they sneak into the army base and witness some experiments. Because these experiments end up failing epically, Curt finds out his father is being reassigned and they must move. Curt chooses Julie over his father and they flee. While on the road they are in an accident that claims Julie's life. Curt uses the trioxin to reanimate her and the zombie fun begins. I liked this better than the first two installments. It was a different take on this subclass of zombie, and the humor was cut way down. Melinda Clark steals every scene she is in as Julie. The rest of the cast, the acting is on par with what one might expect from this kind of film.

Curt, a GenXer army brat, is madly in love with Julie, a Gothy punk girl with a fascination for the morbid. In order to impress her, Curt swipes his dads clearance card and the two lovebirds sneak into the high security testing facilities of the military base. Curt's dad, a high ranking military official, is involved in some pretty sick experiments which center around the reanimating powers of the chemical known as 245 Trioxin. After witnessing a gruesome resurrection, Curt and Julie flee, have sex and find out that Curt's dad is being transferred. Rather than be torn asunder, the two run away together. But a terrible motorcycle accident cuts their plans - and Julie's life - short. Now it's back to the base to reanimate his beloved, but even though the resurrected Julie seems normal, it's only a matter of time before her dead body rots, and her human emotions are replaced with an insatiable hunger for living human brains.

This third installment in the ROTLD series avoids the campy black comedy of the first film, and the utter stupidity of the second. It falls somewhere right smack between the two and ends up being halfway decent. There's some great scenes of cutting, scarification and body mutilation as Julie discovers that self inflicted pain can temporarily curb her nasty appetite. Whether or not this was an intentional comment on the habits of GenX teens to mutilate themselves to curb feelings of depression, I don't know, but it's quite effective and, considering that this came out in 1993, rather timely as well. Julie ends up resembling a Cenobite rather than a zombie, decked out in leather, chains and broken glass, but I'm not complaining. There's a LOT of gore, most of which takes place in the military labs as zombies are fitted with harnesses, lobotomized with power drills, held together with metal exoskeletons and, in general, end up resembling an S&M orgy gone horribly wrong. It's pretty nasty, graphic stuff, but the zombies themselves are pretty cool looking, especially one who ends up looking like a freaky, bipedal giraffe.

The story isn't anything new, but some of the acting (especially that of Mindy Clarke as Julie) is pretty good and the zombie effects are impressive. The ending is a downer, but not as grim and disheartening as it could have been.

All in all, it's fairly enjoyable. It's much better than Part 2 was, anyway.

Return of the Living Dead III (1993) was released upon the 25th anniversary of the release of Night of the Living Dead (1968). Instead of making another bad spoof, Brian Yuzna wisely decided to make a return to the basics. A creepy and dark horror film. A young military brat and his girl are fooling around on a motorcycle and she's killed in a fatal accident. Grief stricken and severely sprung, the kid takes his girl to the army base where his dad works and takes her to a secret lab and revives her. Sadly the boy doesn't know what he's unleashed and this young "frankenstein" has to destroy his little "creation". If you're going to watch this movie please avoid the "rated" version. As in all of Brian Yuzna's films he likes to make his flicks over the top and very gory. The "family" rental companies carry the "rated" version so "look out" for the "unrated" label. If not then you'll be treated to a bunch of freeze frames and badly cut scenes. A sad tale about true love.

Recommended.

Let's hope this ends the series. If it does then it'll end on a high note.

Love and gore-what more do you need? Return of the Living Dead III is an excellent gore flick with a love story at the core. It's also a horror fans dream. That dream being that a great series never ruined itself like most do in the genre. At least that's the way I feel about it. RotLD III features a great story driven by great characters and awesome special effects. And of course, brains. Brian Yuzna (Bride of Re-Animator) is the mastermind behind this end to a great trilogy. J. Trevor Edmond stars as a guy who accidentally kills his girlfriend and uses Trioxin to bring her back. Said girlfriend, played by the awesome Mindy Clarke, makes for an unbelievable appearance by the end of the movie. My only problem with the movie is that it's missing the claustrophobic elements of the first one until the very end, and what an appropriate ending it is. Gore hounds will love this one. Brainsssssssss!

Note for genre buffs: Look for director Anthony Hickox and Brian "Scuz" Peck, who is featured in the entire trilogy, in cameos.

"Return of the Living Dead 3" is another slice of Brian Yuzna badness...horrid acting, gore that looks like red Kool-Aid, weak script and even weaker characters. Now, I understand that Mr. Yuzna has an interesting approach to sequels (taking the bare bones of the predecessor and making something original of it), but this second follow-up to Dan O'Bannon's witty and gory "Return of the Living Dead" is nothing to crow about. A hopeful young drummer named Kurt (who is on his way to Seattle to be in a band...how ironic) gets into a motorcycle accident, killing his girlfriend (Mindy Clarke), and in a fit of passion, revives her with a chemical at a nearby military base; she comes back, with a taste for human flesh (you know the drill). Aside from her tendency to chew on people, the girl is the more rational-minded of the two, while Kurt spends most of the movie screaming hopelessly (a horror gender reversal...or just bad writing?). They're eventually pursued by a group of military men AND a gang of stereotyped Latinos in a sewer, of all places...unfortunately, Yuzna can't build suspense to save his life, and the bad acting here is always too sincerely straight to merit many laughs. Only a few minor elements impressed me: Clarke's body piercing 'suit' is imaginative, and the character of Riverman is over-the-top funny (intentionally, I think). But the zombies--this movie's bread and butter--are lame, unconvincing concoctions, and the ending seems to have lifted an idea or two from "Shock Waves" (zombies as the perfect weapon?).

To its credit, RotLD 3 is better than the first sequel, but that's not saying much.

2/10

The third movie in the Return of the Living Dead series marks a change in direction from horror comedy to tragic love story. The plot to this one has a teenage boy (J. Trevor Edmond) using the zombie gas from the first two films to bring his dead girlfriend (Melinda 'Mindy' Clarke) back to life, with horrifying results. This is easily the second best in the series, surpassed only by the first. The '90s wasn't a great time for horror fans. Most of what was being made was cheap straight-to-video stuff. I can count on one hand the number of decent horror movies from that time. This movie would make the cut. It has interesting direction from Brian Yuzna, a refreshing story, and a decent cast. Melinda Clarke is especially good. Definitely worth taking a look at if you want something different.

Those pesky teenagers, eh? When they're not stinking up the place with bongs and their pop music, they're sneaking into military bases to reanimate their dead girlfriends. Probably quite handy that the teenager in question's dad was in charge of the place too.

I was all up liking this one after recently rediscovering the first film, and ignoring the second one (haven't seen it for years and still remember how bad it was). However, I felt kind of let down with this one. I can understand why Brian Yuzna tried to tell the story the way it was, with a tragic romance angle and what not, but due to all the drama and brow-beating (not to mention the teenager shouting "Julie" several hundred times, I couldn't help but feel that the old zombie angle had take a bit of a back seat. I'm not out for teenage love and Romeo and Juliet styles antics - I wants hundreds of the living dead pursuing the living. For brains! The living dead themselves didn't seem to have too much of a handle of them living, breathing folk and were put down before they had a chance to spread, which was a bit of a pity. I don't know - this one wasn't to my taste. Others might like it. Maybe it was played too serious for me.

The third part in a series of movies usually is nowhere near the original; however, Brian Yuzna's take on the "Return of the Living Dead" makes the third installment in the famous comedy/horror series, a very different and special movie. Getting away from the slapstick comedy aspect of the previous films, director Yuzna & writer John Penney unfold a tale of doomed love and gory violence spiced up with very dark humor. Quite a change from part 2; in fact, the only thing this movie has in common with the previous chapters is the inclusion of the re-animating gas.

Penney's script is like a bizarre twist on "Romeo & Juliet": Curt Reynolds (J. Trevor Edmond) is an angsty teenager in love with rebel Julie Walker (Melinda Clarke). While sneaking in the military base where Curt's father (Kent McCord) works, they discover that the project his father has been working involves re-animating corpses. After a tragic accident where Julie dies, Curt decides to bring back Julie using his father's experiments with the infamous chemical: 245 Trioxin.

Right after Julie is revived, the action starts and never stops, with the couple running away from both the army and a gang that wants them dead. To make things worse, Julie's increasing urge to eat human flesh and Curt's own anxiety and family troubles collide and make the trip harder for the lovers.

Brian Yuzna really created something special with this movie, the characters are very rich and are the backbone of the movie. The acting is top notch, something quite different from the typical b-movie. In fact, the movie is so well done in those aspects that its flaws in SFx and overall production are easily forgiven.

The movie has a lot of heart and the credit for that must go to Yuzna's direction and Penney's script. The couple of lovers must really grow to face the situation and to face each other's troubles. The acting is very good for the most part, but is Clarke who gives the performance as Julie.

The transformation from self confident daredevil to fearful victim of the circumstances, and then to ruthless killing machine is very believable and one cannot avoid to feel sympathy for her character. A really remarkable job.

Sadly, the movie is not perfect, the low budget hurts the production a lot and the sets look a bit fake, However, it's worth to point out that the make-up effects in the zombies and the gore are quite good for the budget.

By far the best movie in the series, and among the best and most creative horror movies ever done. Director Brian Yuzna has not been able yet to come up close to this achievement, but he earned his place in history with this movie. 8/10. A modern classic.

Return of the Living Dead III is the type of horror film you can watch with your friends, or your girlfriend. It is a film with a romantic (yet tragic) edge to it that saves it from the muck of sequel overkill. The story follows a young man who, after seeing his girlfriend die who he loves so much, brings her back to life in a top secret facility with the gas that brings back the dead from part 1 (without them being able to get electricuted), but then strange things happen. Clever horror with a edge, with it's only problem not stopping too often and of course the sequel overkill. Still worth a look, especially for horror enthusaists who don't believe there's life after part 2. A-

ell, this is the kind of horror movie you can watch with friends and have fun. It's not as ugly as any Z movie and the story is not ridiculous; I mean the fun comes from the cliché situations well fledged with all the horror stuff.

However I still prefer Re-Animator which had a better characterization at a point I wonder what if they had made it a true horror movie with no place for breaths and laughs. That is a tremendous horror movie like Night of the Living Dead.

Return 3 starts off very poorly. Actors are pretending to be in the military in a very cheap looking set. As usual in many low budget horror movies, moronic teenagers decide to break into a top secret military facility for fun.... <sigh>, and naturally accidentally release whatever the base is trying to contain. I was prepared at that point for the worst and settled myself in for 90 minutes of frustration. Return of the Living Dead 2 was one of the worst sequels I had ever seen, so I really wasn't expecting much from Return 3. But then something happened, and Return 3 got better and better. There was a real story! The director actually tried for some character development! There was suddenly plenty of extremely well done gore! There were some moments of real horror!

The scenes where Julie starts cutting and impaling herself were difficult to watch, that's how well done they were. The movie moves from a cheap horror-comedy into a well put together love story with incredibly gory effects. I actually really felt for the main couple, even though she was slowly turning into a zombie! Normally, one of them would get whacked which would give the remaining person a few lame Arnold-type lines, and an excuse to obliterate whatever (or whomever) is supposed to be the bad guy. However, this movie doesn't follow that formulaic path. It takes a very weird turn halfway through and never looks back.

When Julie makes her transformed appearance in the sewer, it is truly an awe-inspiring site! They actually managed to make her look both incredibly repulsive and very sexy at the same time. This film reminded me a lot of the Ginger Snaps movies in the type of character development pursued within the confines of a horror movie. Very pleasant surprise.

8/10

I was reluctant to watch the third part of the series (I have no interest in the second) as I knew the character of Burt would no longer be joining us. The death of Burt in the first ROTLD is one of the most unfortunate things in all cinema and had me depressed for weeks. I had further reservations when the logic of the first one was changed significantly--people in this movie are turned into zombies when bitten by one, which was not part of the original at all (this was also not the case in "Night of the Living Dead," but Romero put it into the sequel. It seems to be a weird detail that was obliquely added to the zombie genre and is now taken for granted). There is also some uncertainty as to why the resurrected character Julie even wants brains. In the first one, the zombies can feel themselves decomposing and only brains can relieve the pain--in this one, she is just inexplicably hungry, and brains... make her full, or something. This leads to a rather hilarious scene in which she's stuffing all sorts of food into her mouth at a gas station and had me wondering if the movie was going to be idiotic, but at that moment the director hits the clutch and the plot veers into full throttle awesomeness. (And in retrospect it's not that big a plot hole; maybe she can't feel herself rotting yet but her body knows it's happening and desires brains.)

We begin following Julie and her boyfriend Curt (weird side note: these are the names of my aunt and uncle!) as they aimlessly run through the streets while pursued by a gang, with Julie becoming more insatiably hungry by the minute. It's top-notch horror. A lot of horror movies have you wondering, "Why don't they just get HELP or something," but here it is clearly impossible for the police or medics to do anything, and you're as stumped about what the characters should do as they are. There's no feeling superior to them, a hard trick to pull off in a horror movie. Eventually, Julie attempts suicide and is rescued by a black man dressed like a Jedi Knight, and here I was no longer sad that Burt wasn't around because this new fellow actually out-awesomes Burt. He takes them to a room in a sewer which he has converted into some sort of temple and announces, "YOU CAN CALL ME... RIVERMAN," whereby I was able to conclude that if I were somehow put in charge of the MPAA rating system, I would rate every movie based on whether or not Riverman was in it (Riverman being played by cult actor Basil Wallace, best known as Screwface from the badass action movie "Marked for Death"). It is while in Riverman's lair that Julie discovers extreme pain can take her mind off brains, leading to the famous scene wherein she mutilates herself beyond recognition (some may see this as another plot hole, since the original ROTLD zombies needed brains to take their minds off pain, but I believe Julie still has enough of a conscience that she prefers the pain to killing). The astute viewer will realize here that all this eating and cutting on Julie's part seems to be referencing some actual real-life issues, although I'm not entirely sure what the point of it is. It might be just a joke, but the tone is dark enough that it makes a sobering addition to an already depressing story.

There's more awesomeness that I don't want to spoil here--I will only say that the freaky zombies from the first movie make an appearance at the end, bringing it all to a chaotic conclusion. Mindy Clarke is AMAZING as Julie--she makes a believable performance out of a role that is far different than the usual teen-horror "scream queen." The doomed bond between her and Curt works as both straight horror and tragedy, and the slick direction and elaborate set pieces make this a fine action flick as well. It's not quite as fun as the first in the series, but it's definitely impressive on its own, and I can honestly rate it as one of the better movies of the 80's. Check it out. 7/10.

i didn't like this movie. and after reading other reviews posted here i can't believe most of you did. i suppose the biggest reason i hated this movie is because it isn't a zombie movie, or at least it has very little business being in the genre. and that's not to say because it was innovative or expanded the genre. it did not. the genre has certain standards. i think you can be innovative with vampires, but zombies aare what they are.

ok. i admit i was expecting something else when i saw this movie. i had been waiting a while to see it and was really let down. love story? are you people serious? what the hell was that about? that concept was done much better in cemetery man and also in tromeo and juliet, but here it's just moronic.

in fact i must confess i don't even remember what this movie was about, only that i wanted to like it because i am a huge zombie fan, and i hated it. i even liked oasis of the zombies for chrissakes. but i'm sure those of you who didn't like the first two movies in this series will like this one. just a feeling.

Lonely teenager's girlfriend is killed in a motorcycle accident. He takes her to his father's secret lab and brings her back to life. However, she has a hunger that can not be controlled and she starts munching on various people's flesh that they run into. Now, she has accidently created her own army of the undead.

Better then you would expect with a good premise, pretty good direction an emotional finale and some smart jabs. However most the acting is cheesy, the effects are over the top and seem to belong in another film given the serious tone. However, watching Sarah Douglas chew the scenery is always fun!

Unrated; Sexual Situations, Profanity, Nudity and Graphic Violence.

I recall wanting to rent something cheesy and campy for a weekend alone and came across Return of the Living Dead III. I knew it had to be better than part 2 (which I consider the worst zombie movie). I expected a lot of skin, a lot of gore, a lot of comedy, and not much in regards to plot. What I got was some skin, a lot of gore, no comedy, and a fairly decent plot. True, some of the plot shenanigans were fairly predictable, and I think the writers were not too sure how to end the movie, but there is an interesting twist of being a zombie. Curtis and Julie are in love. Curtis' dad is in the military and working on a top secret project to use the pesky chemical that brings back the dead. Curtis and Julie see an experiment gone awry and run away. Curtis' dad then is re-assigned to Oklahoma City and must leave immediately. Of course, his son does not want to leave Julie behind. He runs off with Julie, but an accident happens and Julie is killed. Curtis remembers the experiment and brings her back - but she's not the same girl as before. She doesn't want to hurt Curtis, but struggles with her own transformation into a zombie. I was pleasantly surprised how some character and plot developed. There was conflict and dilemma for Curtis, his dad, and Julie. On the other hand, the movie's ending came off a uneven and unfocused. And it falls into the trap of a few horror clichés - like kids sneaking into a military complex. For a change, the Return of the Living Dead franchise got a little resuscitation and came back to life.

Such a shame. I kind of appreciate wanting to change things up a little to add some freshness to the series, but in doing so they removed all the charm and likeability of the previous 2 movies.

Gone is the goofy humour and cheesy characters, now replaced with zero humour as it tries to be a more serious film, and awful actors.

It was good while it lasted :(

Call me whatever you want, but this film touched me as much as The Fly ('86) did. It has this emotional component that I can't call by its name, but that makes it more than a mere splatter movie to me.

I am not saying that this movie is a revelation or has to be considered a classic by everybody, but still reading all these negative critiques out there makes me feel like the movie gets treated worse than it deserves.

Let me point out Melinda Clarke's and J. Trevor Edmond's credible acting as a couple and the successful rearrangement of the series' roots without the unnecessary comedy, for example.

The first 2 films in this series were a good continuation of the zombie genre. They were effective in infusing zombies, horror & comedy all in one – like merging Night of the Living Dead with Evil Dead II. They also added a bit of zest to the zombies themselves – enabling them with the ability to run (yep, way before 28 Days Later et al).

However, for some reason someone out there decided they should take the 'Return of the Living Dead' name and ruin it beyond recognition. Gone is the humour, horror and inventiveness of the original. In fact, gone even are the zombies! They aren't really zombies in this film, more just like childishly grotesque monsters.

One of the things that springs to mind on a film like this is why veer from the style of the original so much? I guess somebody wrote this dire script and someone else somewhere decided it would make more money if they traded off the 'Return…' name.

I don't know why other reviewers think this is an extremely gory film. They must have a very low tolerance level. The gore in this movie is quite childish, silly and obviously fake. It certainly isn't on a par with the first two 'Return…' movies, or any of the other 'proper' zombie films that Romero made.

Usually, sequels are inferior to their original films. Fortunately, every once in a while there comes a sequel which by far surpasses the "first one". Brian Yuzna's "Return Of The Living dead 3" is one of those miraculous exceptions. A simple story of love, parenthood and zombies turns out to be one of the best horror films of all time, making the genre move forward both in quality and in innovation. There are some excellent performances, but the gore-effects take the lead role in another job well done by FX wizard Screaming Mad George. It's hard not to be captured by the movie's unique sense of humour allied to some ultra-violent scenes of pure horror and fantasy, that combine to tell the tragic story of a young man, who sees his beloved girlfriend turned into a flesh-eating creature that still loves him, but will sooner or later have to eat him! Brian Yuzna really got it once more, proving that he is one of the most promising horror directors for the future. Don't miss this one!

The first Return of the Living Dead is by far the best of the series, being immensely entertaining and creepy with very little wrong. This second sequel, and the third in the series, is an improvement over the second, which relied on too much humour (most of which was very forced) and had very few scares, and certainly much better than the fourth and fifth films, both of which were horrendous, especially the latter.

Return of the Living Dead Part III does have things wrong. It does start off poorly, with a lack of suspense, some cheesy and out of place comedy (though luckily the film is never too over-reliant on that, allowing the horror and scares to come out for much of the film) some of the worst of the limited budget and it felt like it had jumped to half-way through, and some of the story does feel and wear thin in a few places, doesn't quite sustain the running time, with a very clumsy final five minutes. The limited budget does sometimes show, in some cheap-looking sets and some shoddy effects. The zombies are also very underused.

However, the film is very well shot and atmospherically lit, the zombie make-up is some of the best of the entire series and most of the special effects are good. The music is haunting and catchy, with a lovingly nostalgic 80s vibe that never felt dated or cheesily over the top. The scripting is not too bad, it is nowhere near as strained as the second film's and treats its Romeo and Juliet-like story to an enjoyably dark and moving effect if sometimes taking things a little too seriously. While the execution of the story is not perfect, it doesn't try too hard to be funny and it's nowhere near as dull or as incoherent as the succeeding two sequels.

It is by far the darkest and most original of the series, it does offer some genuine scares and emotional impact, the gore is suitably harrowing and the last thirty minutes is mostly enjoyably over-the-top and poignantly tragic until the clumsy final five minutes. People will argue that it is nothing like the first two, and that is one of the main reasons why it is the most polarising of the five films and understandably, I for one didn't have a problem with it.

The love story is handled with a good deal of emotion and doesn't get too sappy, saccharine or silly. The zombies are underused, but when they do appear they look great and have a real sense of fun and menace, while the characters are some of the more likable and less annoying of the series, Julie is a very interesting character and easy to root for. The direction is competent, and the acting is pretty good, Sarah Douglas chews the scenery is an enormously fun way (and this is coming from a person who is not a huge fan of that kind of acting) and Mindy Clarke is excellent as Julie.

All in all, not perfect or great but pretty decent and by far the best of the sequels. 6/10 Bethany Cox

This film is the worst piece of dreck that I've ever had the great misfortune of seeing. The zombies were not zombie-like. The characters were one-dimensional. The writing was abysmal. The camera work was actually passable, which made the movie all the more torturous. I don't know how the directing was because that horrible "dialogue" kept on getting in the way. If you have insomnia and this is the only thing on TV, READ A BOOK instead of watching this truly awful film. The only thing that is surprising about the complete lack of quality of this film is that it DOESN'T have the name "Troma Studios" attatched to it.