Skippy's Movie Reviews, #15: Return of the Living Dead
As true zombie fanatics everywhere know, not all cool living dead movies were made by George Romero. This one, directed by Dan O'Bannon (one of the people responsible for _Alien_) is more of a comedy. Based on the underlying concept of Night of the Living Dead, it throws in a few new twists.
Some of these twists include: The "Resurrection Cemetery", a split half-dog barking and wagging its tail, a pickaxe to the head, a hacksaw taken to a corpse, rabid weasels, cool factoids (the heart is the hardest part of a body to burn...who knew that?), acid rain, an undead midget, not one but _three_ successful ambushes by zombies, a bitch-slap, a zombie Q&A session, a home run, and a 1-800 number to call the army to report zombie canisters (1-800-454-8000.) Whew!
The principals this go-round:
Frank: uncle of Freddy, works in medical supply store
Freddy: kid, along with Frank he gets exposed to the zombie gas in the old army canister
Ethan & Ethel: Army guy & wife, on constant alert in case canister is found
Agop: body in supply store, hooked through ears, later animates and gets hacksawed to pieces (which are still animated)
Rover: the split dog, yelps pitifully after being brought back to life (and proves that you don't have to be human to be a living dead!)
Bert: owner of supply store, must deal with all of these problems
Ernie: the old embalmer, turned to for help when things get out of hand
Suicide: ill-tempered punk, used by friends for rides
Trash: (Linnea Quigley) Suicide's girlfriend, naked for 95% of this movie
"Corey": cool black guy who becomes a top-notch zombie fighter
Chuck: yuppie-looking punk, tries to score with Casey and fails
Casey: punk chick with blue hair, cute but otherwise useless
Tina: Freddy's girlfriend, fails to understand that Freddy's changing into a zombie
"Mort": punk w/mohawk, gets brain eaten by "Ralph"
"Ralph": old zombie in original canister, he's the one running around screaming "Brains!" and "More brains!"
"Mortimer": bag man (as opposed to bag lady) whose last experience is to get his brain eaten by the naked Trash
Continuing the trend in recent zombie flicks, the living dead in this one move fast. I mean real fast. Fast enough to outrun victims, fast enough to execute successful ambushes, fast enough to be a definite danger to even experienced zombie-fighters. They also eat brains, instead of just any living flesh. It's good to be picky...
A very entertaining film. We not only recommend it, we give it a B.