Return Of The Living Dead
A Cult Masterpiece that, in terms of sheer outrageousness, very nearly tops anything that George Romero ever came up with, all while having the balls to actually use Romero’s original movie as a jumping off point, making several references to it in the dialogue (“It worked in the movie!” “You mean the movie LIED?”) Damn shame Dan O’Bannon wasn’t allowed to make more horror / cult movies after this 1984 release, as he could have been a legend if he had applied the same high standard of writing and directing to further genre ventures. The movie begins with a casual closing down and lockup at an average medical supply warehouse, where the manager is doing some walk through training with his fresh, young new employee (a goofy punk rock kid who is also his nephew). Turns out the manager (a basically low intelligence career working man) can’t help but to try to impress the kid into thinking that he’s “cool” by telling him about some special canisters in the basement that are actually able to reanimate the dead (and were the real life “basis” for Romero’s film). Once down in the basement, the old manager gets even more cocky by actually slapping the side of the canister and releasing a gas that overwhelms them both, not to mention bringing back to life anything and everything in the place that is resembling being dead. Once they wake up (but don’t realize that it’s too late for both of them since they already inhaled the gas), the manager can think of no better solution than to call the boss (probably his solution for every major crisis), which brings over Clu Gulager as the owner of the warehouse, basically your typical well monied yet shady small business owner who would rather put his company and his own reputation ahead of the welfare and even the lives of other human beings. Meanwhile the punk rock kid’s equally punked out friends are coming by to pick him up from work, choosing to spend the time waiting for him by going and partying in an old cemetary. As the crisis mounts, some moving cadaver parts are brought to the mortician next door (Don Calfa) with the deal made to allow him to use his crematorium so that the evidence is destroyed and the company is in the clear. But no. The smoke from the burning reanimated corpse gets outside and into the clouds causing it to rain on the punk teens’ parade not to mention waking up everyone buried in the place so that there can now be a real party. As one can see, O’Bannon was able to work in a lot of offbeat humor here, and the New Nightmare like connection to Romero’s work (while still acknowledging that Romero will always be the true king of zombie horror) comes off wonderfully. The music soundtrack of punk rock songs (as well as the exact timing of their placement throughout the film) create a lot of memorable moments in and of themselves as well as retain the spirit and energy of the piece that was obviously intended. The energy of the camerawork using all kinds of tricky shots makes this stand out as being unique in the genre. As for the acting, we get a bit of a mixed bag. Gulager as the fast talking, too slick for his own good owner of the warehouse shows just why he was able to build up his own business and bank account when he coaches up his two sick and dying employees so that THEY can bring down a zombie while his perfectly healthy self stands off to the side and watches (only to be the first one the zombie goes for when let loose), but overall the performance is rather blasé and hardly any kind of a hero (though Gulager’s top billing might be more due to his being the biggest “name” in the cast more than anything). Most of the teens here are really pretty bland, as we get the oversized pierced up punk with an anger complex (who even slaps away a horny hot girl because he’s too caught up in ranting about how “nobody understands him”), the mohawk guy who’s actually pretty effeminate, the dork who thinks that he’s a London Mod by dressing in a suit and tie, and Jewel Shepard as the multicolored hair girl whose primary quality is that she is such an irredeemable bitch (“Fuck you, ballbuster!” seems to be the primary way that she is addressed) and then you have Thom Matthews (in his other primary role besides Tommy Jarvis in Jason Lives) who is a lot of fun to watch as Freddy, the dumb kid just starting his job at the medical supply warehouse and instantly regretting it, along with his sweet, virtuous, normal seeming (which makes her stick out like a sore thumb from the others) girlfriend played by Beverly Randolph and of course Miguel Nunez as the man himself, Spider, the only member of the gang to assume any kind of heroic or leadership role in the later stages of the film as he actually gets treated like an equal by the older male characters despite being in essence a black, crazy looking, punk rock kid. Calfa’s performance as the mortician is a curious one. At some points, it seems like he’s supposed to come off like the most twisted (living) character in the story, almost acting entranced over the idea of being at ground zero when there’s a zombie apocalypse, and at other times he just seems like a complete idiot, going over the top with some goofy, physical slapstick that just doesn’t translate as well as other bits of humor, even as his sometimes hard to fathom loyalties (notice how he puts his gun to the head of an innocent girl during the final moments for little to no reason) makes one wonder if he is at least reasonably sane. The Tar Man and many of the other zombies are fun to watch, and their straight up, no nonsense, never ending search for the brains of others offers much in the way of the laughs (“Send more paramedics.”), but the acting honors are pretty much shared here by James Karen as Frank the doomed yet dumbass warehouse manager, who manages to bring a ton of dignity and poignancy to his final scene in the midst of all the mayhem and carnage, and of course the Legendary Linnea Quigley as Trash, easily the hottest punk rock chick in Cinema History, with her nude moonlight dance ensuring her immortality for all time, as it is a shame that O’Bannon didn’t give her some more screen time, because even without the kinkier aspects the character is nonetheless fascinating to watch with her seemingly severe death obsession (although it’s entirely possible that it’s a ploy on her part to try and draw attention to herself) and casually dismissive attitude about almost everything, as this was the role that propelled Quigley to a long run in the 80s as the Ultimate Low Budget Scream Queen. It’s easy to look at the overall effect here and say that this movie was both reaching into the past (Romero) and looking into the future (Comedy mixed with horror as in Evil Dead 2), but it has to be said that there are some truly scary as well as quite evocative moments throughout (as when Quigley emerges out of the cemetary naked to greet an old homeless man or when Calfa ties down a half decayed zombie woman to ask it what it’s like to be dead) that show some real artistic skill on display with what can be done on what was (surely) a low budget. It even started its own zombie franchise, as Part 2 of this was a straight up (and very bad) comedy, Part 3 went the interesting Zombie Romeo and Juliet route, and the later films wound up being Sci Fi Channel Original Movies. Couple this with some great gore effects including lots of juicy brain shots and as stated, LOTS of classic dialogue which means that this is one unique ride that has wowed one generation after another with its undeniable genius and will continue to do so for many generations to come as long as untalented amateurs are always trying to put up their own zombie films with mostly failed results…
9/10