Review #118: Return of the Living Dead (1985)


This review was originally written in October 2021.

October 2021 Horror Movie Review #4- The Return of the Living Dead (1985)

Hooooooly crap I was not expecting this film.

I've read about how John Russo and George Romero decided to create two different sequels to Night of the Living Dead, with Romero creating Dawn of the Dead and Russo creating The Return of the Living Dead. After watching Dawn and Day and seeing how so much of modern zombie lore stems from them, I assumed this movie would be a similarly-paced, similarly-themed movie (just with different lore or rules or whatever).

Boy was I wrong.

Return is big, it's bombastic, it's fast-paced, and it's unabashedly silly. Where Dawn and Day had moments of quiet introspection, and really dealt with the ramifications of living in a world where humanity is slowly being eaten alive (literally) by a mindless untiring threat, Return has a bunch of teens dancing naked in a graveyard while skeletons pop up out of the ground and ring the police to have them send food. This didn't feel like a foundation upon which an entire subgenre would be built, it felt like a goofy 80s horror flick. (And that's a good thing!)

This movie really played fast and loose with the established canon (what little there was), as was likely their intent. Zombies run, zombies talk, zombies explain what it feels like to be a zombie, and they aren't killed by a shot to the brain. They're basically just... people, that are now immortal, and in constant pain that only goes away when they eat brains. On one hand that's ridiculous and a bit slapstick when body parts flop around and grab at a guy's pants, and on the other hand that is EXISTENTIALLY TERRIFYING.

I loved this film. I loved the premise (give me a movie sequel where the previous movie exists in-universe, I'll take it any day of the week), I loved the tone, and I loved the action. Maybe make the characters a tad bit less BONKERS next time, but otherwise this thing was a barrel of fun from beginning to end. (And what an end!)

Overall Rating: 9/10 Secret Nazi Embalmers

Favorite Background Detail: The soda machine in the first scene with a sign that says "Caution: Caustic Soda"

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review #181: The Evil Dead (1981)

Image
This review was originally written in 2022. Gabe's 100 Bucket List Horror Films Review #36: The Evil Dead (1981) As much as I'm trying to make these reviews as standalone as possible, I feel the need to tie this one (at least a little bit) into the last one (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) and the next one (Evil Dead II). So, bear with me I guess. I'm a huge fan of the Evil Dead series as a whole. Evil Dead II was one of the first horror films I ever saw, and for many years was my favorite movie of all time. However, I was never a very big fan of the first movie; I only saw The Evil Dead a couple times and when I did, it felt "lesser" than Evil Dead II in every way. I'll save most of my comments about EDII until the next review, but I just want to say that in this particular rewatch, I came out liking The Evil Dead WAY more than I used to, and liking Evil Dead II a little bit less (though I still love it). If you aren't familiar with the series at all, The E
Read more

Review #153: The Endless (2018)

Image
This review was originally written in 2022. Gabe's 100 Bucket List Horror Films Review #8 - The Endless (2018) A disclaimer: Most of this review is going to be me complaining about the logistics and mechanics of this movie, and it's going to be full of spoilers. I'll try to summarize my non-mechanical thoughts as concisely as possible. The Endless is an interesting film created by writing/directing duo Benson and Moorhead. Apart from Spring (which to my knowledge doesn't fit into this film's universe, though I could be mistaken) this was the first Benson & Moorhead joint I'd seen, and I was instantly intrigued by the premise: two brothers escaped a cult ten years ago, and after hearing that the cult was seemingly getting ready to kill themselves, they go back for one last visit to get some closure. When they get there, they realize that the cult's supernatural beliefs seem to be true, and they get caught up in a strange web of timey-wimeyness under the u
Read more

Review #179: It (2017)

Image
This review was originally written in 2022. Gabe's 100 Bucket List Horror Films Review #34: It (2017) I read It about twenty years ago; it's probably the longest book I've read in full. I think the book is very, very good (though also very, very Stephen King, which means there's a lot in its pages that makes it quantitatively worse than it could be) and for the most part this movie is a faithful adaptation... of half of it. I'll save most of my book vs. movie complaints for later on, but I'll just say that the book itself is two very important and very intertwined halves of a story, and while I understand the reasoning to cut it in half (doing the whole book justice would take well over four hours' worth of screentime), I really do think it does the whole story a disservice when this entire film starts and ends with the characters as kids. The book is constantly jumping back and forth between the child half of the story and the adult half, to the point where
Read more