Halloween Party: Return of the Living Dead
ZOMBIE WEEK continues, gang, with a review of a "classic" in the zombie genre. Although the film is over 20 years old, I only saw it for the first time a few weeks ago, and you know what they say it. If I haven't seen it, it's new to me!
When I was a kid, my folks would take my brother, sister and me to the video store and allow us to pick out movies. Although my choices typically ran towards stuff like Flight of the Navigator or Ernest Gets a Colon Polyp, I found myself frequently drifting through the horror section. This was the 1980s, heyday of campy horror, and as I gazed at the boxes covered with grinning skulls, hideous ghouls and knives dripping with blood, I was morbidly fascinated. I also knew there was no way in hell Dad would ever let me watch one of these flicks, so I never asked. In a way, I kind of consider myself lucky. By the time I finally started to discover horror movies in my 20s, most of the crap from the 80s has been long forgotten, and instead, I’m left only with those films that have stood the test of time.
Once upon a time (1968, to be exact), George Romero and John Russo together made Night of the Living Dead, one of the benchmarks of horror cinema and the measuring stick against which all future zombie movies would be judged. Then, they got into an argument. Each mutually agreed to allow the other to continue the franchise on their own as they saw fit. Romero went on to make the horror classic Dawn of the Dead and its sequels Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead.
Russo went on to produce the schlockfest we’re here to talk about today.
Of all the video boxes and movie posters that intrigued me as a youth, Return of the Living Dead was probably the one I found the most disturbing: that horrific image of green-skinned zombies clawing their way from the grave sent flaming heebie-jeebies up my 8-year-old spine, even as part of me was consumed with curiosity as to what could be contained in the video cassette. A few weeks ago, I finally got my answer with the Return of the Living Dead Collector’s Edition DVD, complete with glow-in-the-dark cover.
The 1985 movie begins in a medical supply company, where a new employee stupidly asks his supervisor what the weirdest thing he ever saw was. The supervisor begins to weave the tale of how Night of the Living Dead wasn’t just a movie, but was in fact based on the true story of a horrible chemical compound that brought the dead back to life. And as if that weren’t enough, the tanks containing the dead bodies and the Trioxin gas that animated them just happened to be in the basement! So of course the question is asked: wanna see?
Well, in case you’ve never seen a horror film (the only possible way you couldn’t guess what happens next), the tank is broken, the gas sprays out into the ventilation system, and a medical cadaver is reanimated and goes on the attack. Having seen the movie, the guys who woke him up try to destroy his brain only to find out - horrors! - it doesn’t kill him! (This prompts the best line in the entire film: “You mean the movie lied?”) So to dispose of the flesh-craving beast, they chop it up and dump it into the crematorium of their friendly neighborhood mortuary. Problem solved, right?
Suuuuuuuuuuuure it is.
What happens is the smoke from the crematorium sends the clouds, causing a downpour of toxic rain… right over the town cemetery.
And that’s when the movie really gets going.
These aren’t the classic zombies, though, not Romero-ian zombies. Not only can they talk and think, not only does destroying the brain fail to re-kill them, but they crave eating live brains. As horrors go, they aren’t really scary - their goofy antics come off like a flesh-eating version of the Three Stooges. Most of the characters, particularly the teenagers, come straight out of the 1980s Punk Teenager Stereotype Handbook. Even the makeup effects are pretty poor. The budget seems to be blown on two “major” zombies, with all the other just given a coat of think, chunky white face paint. Even the girl who strips off her clothes in the cemetery for no apparent reason until she’s killed by a swarm of zombies… only to emerge a few scenes later as a naked zombie bitch with pasty white skin and not a single mark on her flesh. Believe me, you could tell. You’d think they would at least give her a few bite marks.
The one really impressive effect - and, in fact, the best thing about this flick - is the original zombie that pops out of the Trioxin tank, the creature known as Tarman. The idea of this corpse was, essentially, that the gas had caused his flesh to liquefy and drip off his body in gooey chunks. The effect is good and creepy, due in no small part to the work of actor Allan Trautman. Trautman had a unique, gangly stride that made him move like something totally not of this Earth. It was powerful, effective and creepy… right up until he licks his lips and murmurs the first immortal, “Braaaaaaains…”
It’s not a terrible movie, and I’d lay even money that it’s better than any of its four sequels, but personally I prefer the Romero zombie. I like a zombie that’s slow, dumb and wants all your flesh, not just the brain. And most importantly, I want to be able to kill them with a headshot. When they’re indestructible, what chance do any of us have? And when we don’t have a chance, well… where’s the fun in that?
When I was a kid, my folks would take my brother, sister and me to the video store and allow us to pick out movies. Although my choices typically ran towards stuff like Flight of the Navigator or Ernest Gets a Colon Polyp, I found myself frequently drifting through the horror section. This was the 1980s, heyday of campy horror, and as I gazed at the boxes covered with grinning skulls, hideous ghouls and knives dripping with blood, I was morbidly fascinated. I also knew there was no way in hell Dad would ever let me watch one of these flicks, so I never asked. In a way, I kind of consider myself lucky. By the time I finally started to discover horror movies in my 20s, most of the crap from the 80s has been long forgotten, and instead, I’m left only with those films that have stood the test of time.
Once upon a time (1968, to be exact), George Romero and John Russo together made Night of the Living Dead, one of the benchmarks of horror cinema and the measuring stick against which all future zombie movies would be judged. Then, they got into an argument. Each mutually agreed to allow the other to continue the franchise on their own as they saw fit. Romero went on to make the horror classic Dawn of the Dead and its sequels Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead.
Russo went on to produce the schlockfest we’re here to talk about today.
Of all the video boxes and movie posters that intrigued me as a youth, Return of the Living Dead was probably the one I found the most disturbing: that horrific image of green-skinned zombies clawing their way from the grave sent flaming heebie-jeebies up my 8-year-old spine, even as part of me was consumed with curiosity as to what could be contained in the video cassette. A few weeks ago, I finally got my answer with the Return of the Living Dead Collector’s Edition DVD, complete with glow-in-the-dark cover.
The 1985 movie begins in a medical supply company, where a new employee stupidly asks his supervisor what the weirdest thing he ever saw was. The supervisor begins to weave the tale of how Night of the Living Dead wasn’t just a movie, but was in fact based on the true story of a horrible chemical compound that brought the dead back to life. And as if that weren’t enough, the tanks containing the dead bodies and the Trioxin gas that animated them just happened to be in the basement! So of course the question is asked: wanna see?
Well, in case you’ve never seen a horror film (the only possible way you couldn’t guess what happens next), the tank is broken, the gas sprays out into the ventilation system, and a medical cadaver is reanimated and goes on the attack. Having seen the movie, the guys who woke him up try to destroy his brain only to find out - horrors! - it doesn’t kill him! (This prompts the best line in the entire film: “You mean the movie lied?”) So to dispose of the flesh-craving beast, they chop it up and dump it into the crematorium of their friendly neighborhood mortuary. Problem solved, right?
Suuuuuuuuuuuure it is.
What happens is the smoke from the crematorium sends the clouds, causing a downpour of toxic rain… right over the town cemetery.
And that’s when the movie really gets going.
These aren’t the classic zombies, though, not Romero-ian zombies. Not only can they talk and think, not only does destroying the brain fail to re-kill them, but they crave eating live brains. As horrors go, they aren’t really scary - their goofy antics come off like a flesh-eating version of the Three Stooges. Most of the characters, particularly the teenagers, come straight out of the 1980s Punk Teenager Stereotype Handbook. Even the makeup effects are pretty poor. The budget seems to be blown on two “major” zombies, with all the other just given a coat of think, chunky white face paint. Even the girl who strips off her clothes in the cemetery for no apparent reason until she’s killed by a swarm of zombies… only to emerge a few scenes later as a naked zombie bitch with pasty white skin and not a single mark on her flesh. Believe me, you could tell. You’d think they would at least give her a few bite marks.
The one really impressive effect - and, in fact, the best thing about this flick - is the original zombie that pops out of the Trioxin tank, the creature known as Tarman. The idea of this corpse was, essentially, that the gas had caused his flesh to liquefy and drip off his body in gooey chunks. The effect is good and creepy, due in no small part to the work of actor Allan Trautman. Trautman had a unique, gangly stride that made him move like something totally not of this Earth. It was powerful, effective and creepy… right up until he licks his lips and murmurs the first immortal, “Braaaaaaains…”
It’s not a terrible movie, and I’d lay even money that it’s better than any of its four sequels, but personally I prefer the Romero zombie. I like a zombie that’s slow, dumb and wants all your flesh, not just the brain. And most importantly, I want to be able to kill them with a headshot. When they’re indestructible, what chance do any of us have? And when we don’t have a chance, well… where’s the fun in that?