Return of the Living Dead

Directed By: Dan O’Bannon

Starring: Clu Gulager & Thom Mathews

Return of the Living Dead fantastically starts off by stating that it is based on a true story. It immediately lets you in on the joke that it tells over the next hour and a half. And it makes me hope that the stupid idiots that believe the Texas Chainsaw Massacre is real have to think about that statement.

Return of the Living Dead tells the story that George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead is actually real, but Romero had to change all the facts around so he wouldn’t be sued. And it just so happens that a group of zombies from that fateful night in Pennsylvania has ended up in a medical supply warehouse were three of the protagonists work. When a container that possesses one of the zombies is opened, all hell breaks loose.

The zombies in ROTLD are nothing like Romero’s zombies. They run, they can state complete sentences, and possibly the most blasphemous thing I have ever seen in a zombie movie, they don’t die whenever there brain is destroyed. Decapitate one. Nothing. Put a pick ax in the back of one of their skulls and they still keep coming!

The main characters have a ton of charisma as they spout off witty quips as they try to figure out ways to outsmart the living dead. You get Burt, the owner of the medical supply warehouse and the leader of the bunch, Ernie, the owner of the mortuary next door and a possible Nazi, Frank, who is kind of the idiot of the bunch, and Freddy, the naïve new guy. Burt is definitely my favorite character. In addition to the characters being strong, the situation they are in is so dire that I don’t think the movie would be as fun if the situation wasn’t so hopeless.

The humor is also great and intentional. Not only do the dead come back to life, but so does every other dead thing in the medical supply warehouse. And seeing two of the main characters try to beat a split dog to death is sure to cause a chuckle. Or hearing the staple ROTLD zombie “The Tarman” say “More Brains” could cause you to ROFL.

Return of the Living Dead has one of the best endings a horror movie can posses and I wish more horror films would end like that. Unfortunately every sequel in the ROTLD series is complete trash and with the exception of Shaun of the Dead, I hate comedy in zombie movies, but I am willing to say that the original ROTLD is as important in the zombie genre as Romero’s Dawn of the Dead is.

8 out of 10
Trailer for “Return of the Living Dead:”