Le retour des morts-vivants 3

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 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

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-

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.

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