Greetings all! Today's film is entitled "Return of the Living Dead". Not to be confused with anything by George Romero! These are totally separate films. This film was rated 7.7 on IMDB and 4 1/4 stars. So It might not be that bad. But mostly because it has become a cult classic. You can view the trailers
HERE.
Our film starts out with two dumbasses working in a warehouse that operates in cadavers and skeletons. They are loading a skeleton into a crate for shipment. They happen upon a case containing a cantainer that is supposedly left over from the original NOTLD.
The next scene shows a bunch of hooligans out looking for a party place. Jump back to the warehouse, our older jackass tells the younger one all about how the bodies came to be located at that facility. teyt head down to the basement and in one of the brightest moments in film history decide to slam on the side of the canister to show just how strong they really were. ( Worked out great huhn dipshits?) This releases the toxin into the air which they inhale and spreads through the warehouse reanimating every corpse in the building. Even the poor split doggies.
Cut to scene of a general's home. who he is we don't know. What he has to do with the outbreak we have yet to see. He is obviously a douche bag to his wife. All we know for sure is he is looking for the canisters. jump back to the teenagers who decide to wait for the younger dumb ass to get off work so they decide to kill time in the cemetery next door to the medical warehouse. The two genius' in the ware house have now come to and realize a corpse is missing from the container. they track down whimpering and find one of the split dogs panting and try to dispatch it.
Next the cadavers starts trying to get out. Scream queen Linnea Quigley makes a special appearance as
Trash. Well in her most visible role ever she strips down and starts to dance on the tombs. This movie humps around more than a frog between scenes. can we at least have a scene that is more than one minute long?! Anywho, Burt the owner shows up on scene and basically calls them idiots as they try to figure out a way to dispatch of the corpse in the frozen cadaver room.
They decide to bean him on the head with a pick axe and pin him to the floor. When this doesn't work they decide to try and remove the head with a hacksaw only to have a headless Zombie running around like well,,, a chicken with his head cut off. :) It is pretty obvious this is not the typical shoot em in the head Zombie. Oh yeah, that was only a movie. DUH! Burt Comes up with an idea to incinerate the remains.
They try to reason with the funeral director to let them use his crematorium by telling him their are rabid weasels in the bag. He isn't buying at so they let out one of the arms and he basically agrees to let them dispose of the corpse. The smoke stack however is the basic obstacle to overcome as the fumes and ashes from the cremation land on the cemetery next door. This awakens all of the corpses in the cemetary and they are hungry for one thing. BRAINS!
It seems we have another issue to contend with, the initial inhalation of fumes by jackass 1 and two has now infected them and the are dead they just don't realize it. now they realize that something is wrong and start to panic and start hollering for paramedics. to the "Resurrection Funeral Home". NICE
These zombies are your classic cheese zombies. Rotting, able to talk, and have a love of brains.
the group of partying kids are now stuck in the cemetery with the corpses that have risen. all except for Freddies girlfriend Tina who goes to the warehouse to find him, only to find a rotting ghoul hungering for brains. These zombies are smart enough to use chains to rip open the door. the gang of kids make it in time to save tina but the badass of the bunch becomes lunch for the ghoul whos whole voculary seems to be made up of the word "brains".
once the paramedics show up they realize something quite disturbing. They are biologically dead. No blood pressure, no pulse, no pupal responses, no respiration, blood pooling in areas where they are sitting.
Cut back to the cemetery where the dead have started to rise and commence to raising hell. Trash finds her worse nightmare has come true. She is being eaten alive by a bunch of old guys. the group make it to the mortuary. Some get separated. The paramedics get munched on. The group in the mortuary try to barricade themselves in. And in what can only be considered a classic moment in zombie history a zombie gets on the radio and says," Copy Dispatch, Send more paramedics".
Fred and the Frank start with rigamortis setting in as more paramedics arrive and are besieged by zombies hungry for brains. half a zombie gets in and kills one of the goons. They tie it up and try to communicate with it. obviously the brains helps ease the pain of being dead. This was always the disturbing point in the movie for me. The thought of feeling yourself slowly rot away. Falling to pieces. That would have to suck something serious.
Trash is reanimated after she has been dead but shows no sign of being eaten only a deformed face while she attacks some poor wino. As they begin to spread they begin to push outside the area of the cemetery and mortuary, all hell breaks loose. They overtake the police barricades and munch down on the entire town.
Frank and Freddy are now locked in the chapel of the mortuary as the cops show up and once again get turned into a buffet. F and F basically die and are reanimated and chase Tina around the chapel. until they throw sulfuric acid in Freddie's face.
Eventually they decide to barricade themselves into the attic. Frank puts himself into the incinerator and kills himself. A noble act indeed. Burt and spider make it back to the warehouse where they find the number on the canister. They call the number hoping for help which does arrive but not the way they expected. The Standard Operation Procedures for containment is to nuke the place. Freddy tries to get Tina in the attic.
Although not my favorite movie, it is a classic and loved by many.
The gore factor is up to par. It never made sense to me how a pair of rotted jaws can crush through the skull to get at the brains. The acting isn't that bad. The blatant use of T and A for the sake of having T and A always bugs me. If it has some level of point in the plot, fine but not just gratuitous.
I will have to break away from the crowd and give this a two and 1/2 severed thumbs. And remember,
I watch this shit so you dont have to!
Peace
Shane
