Return Of The Living Dead Part 2
Dan OâBannonâs 1985 Return Of The Living Dead was not only a breath of fresh air for the zombie movie subgenre (and also proved that George A. Romero did NOT have the market cornered on cinematic zombies), it also exerted just as much influence on the 80s horror / comedy racket as Raimiâs Evil Dead films, adding new aspects to its zombies such as giving them the ability to literally talk (albeit usually for comic effect) and also (depending on how intact the zombieâs body was) the ability to run up on or even sneak up on their victims in order to enjoy their favorite delicacy, fresh human brains. The film rocked most peopleâs worlds by even featuring human characters that became incredibly memorable in their own right including Linnea Quigleyâs sexy little punk rocker Trash and the duo played by legendary character actor James Karen and future Jason Voorhees archnemesis Thom Mathews as the two employees at a medical supply company whom after getting exposed to toxic fumes slowly find themselves becoming dead and zombified without even realizing it. Of course it was obvious that a sequel was forthcoming after the success of Part 1 but OâBannon was far from interested in being involved, relinquishing the writing and directing duties to one Ken Wiederhorn, a career journeyman whom according to several members of the cast and crew showed little to no enthusiasm about his big opportunity here to make a horror movie that would actually be SEEN, with some saying that he was known to not even be a FAN of horror movies and certainly a case can be made that his indifference can be detected in the final product released in 1988, a mishmash that plays out at times as being more heavily influenced by Steven Spielbergâs E.T. than by anything directed by Romero and which also attempts to be the last word in horror / zombie comedies which doesnât work because the movie itself by and large fails to even be FUNNY with at least one cast member playing things solely for laughs and falling flat on his face. The most interesting aspect of the casting is that (along with Jonathan Terry as the Army Colonel who oversaw the problem solving nuclear holocaust at the end of the first film) Karen and Mathews are actually brought back here despite their characters dying in the first film and given two new roles to play, that being two lowlife grave robbers (in reality Karen is the actual grave robber and Mathews is his assistant for one night only) who break into a mausoleum not only to steal valuable trinkets being worn by the corpses but according to Karen there is a subculture of âweirdosâ that he apparently is acquainted with who will pay good money for the freshly preserved head of a corpse of a certain age, something that Mathews is simply mortified to hear. Meanwhile a canister of the infamous trioxin chemical has fallen off the Army truck driven by a pot smoking soldier and floated downriver only to wind up in a drainage pipe near the same cemetary that Karen and Mathews are looting. After a couple of stupid kids mess with the canister (and get blasted directly in the face with the gas), the fumes float down to the cemetary and yeah, Karen and Mathews once again breathe the shit in which means that they will once again undergo the ordeal of transforming into the living dead while still being conscious as their true (suffering) human selves. Mathews reportedly hated working on the film as well as the finished product and was quoted as saying that the best thing about the experience was the excellent craft services table. Fans of the original wound up disliking it as well and the truth is that not only is the movie neither scary nor funny, the one X factor from Part 1 that is almost completely absent here is the coolness factor that was achieved there which probably explains why so many people were able to connect with the original film. Moments like Quigleyâs nude moonlight cemetary dance (and her sexy emergence from the cemetary after being zombified) and the zombie who is strapped down and questioned as to why she / it eats brains are missing here, with the film choosing instead to give us an obnoxious child protagonist (Michael Kenworthy) who not only has to worry about the zombies in general but also the zombified neighborhood bully who was not only one of the kids to initially open the canister and get hit full blast with the gas but also apparently still remembers the little shit main character and his threats to beat his ass even though the bully himself is no longer alive. Our kid protagonist takes up too much screen time and wears out his welcome early and often, but he does have a hot sister (Marsha Dietlein) who early on calls to have the cable TV fixed which leads to us thankfully having Dana (Twin Peaks) Ashbrook as the cable guy and adult male hero of the film who gets caught up in the mayhem, with Ashbrook not really doing a great job but at least he brings charisma and an attempt at having a wisecracking hero in the mix that the damned kid could never be. It isnât long before this group of characters meet up with Karen, Mathews and Mathewsâ girlfriend (Suzanne Snyder) as the graverobbers try to steal Ashbrookâs cable van and finally the decision is made to knock on the door of the local doctor (and apparently the only person in the neighborhood to own a car) played by Philip Bruns. It is with this character of the doctor that much of the movie starts to go south as while Karen and Mathews are well into their crying and whining schtick (which is still somewhat funny even as Karenâs character this time takes on heavy tones of religious repentance as well) as the agony of becoming The Living Dead overtakes them a second time (and Mathews even frantically having a deja view moment which refers to their roles in Part 1), the character of the doctor comes onscreen right away with a rather bemused comedic routine that never quite clicks simply because either 1) the actor is not all that funny or 2) the material for his character (just like the rest of the movie) is just not all that amusing. The movie literally turns into the 7 main characters frantically driving around in a fancy car (a bit later used in Shaun Of The Dead) all while looking for ANY kind of authority figures that could somehow help them even as both the local police station and hospital emergency room appears to have been deserted. Itâs revealed later on that The Army has pretty much evacutated the town at the first sign of trouble (except for the neighborhood where most of the characters reside in of course) and have quarantined the borders with shoot to kill orders on anyone who tries to leave, but at least this leaves room for a cameo by Mitch Pileggi as an Army stooge who opens fire on a large band of zombies even though the scene itself appears to have been botched during filming as it relates to his characterâs fate. We also have Karen and Mathews accumulating their own body count (something they never managed to do in Part 1) and a near idiotic finale where (presumably) all the zombies in the town are lured onto a bridge which is then hit with live wire electricity and the annoying doctor character (who never shows a sense of urgency about the matter since heâs way too busy always trying to be funny while Ashbrook in comparison at least stays in character while making the occasional wisecrack) gets carried away fishing for some booze instead of doing his part in the whole scheme. This makes for arguably the filmâs most famous moment (one which was completely improvised on the set) where a Michael Jackson lookalike zombie (wearing the same outfit that he wore in the Thriller music video) pops up out of nowhere and does some spastic dancing while being electrocuted and if THAT is considered to be this filmâs most famous moment (albeit the only moment that truly felt random and out of left field in the tradition of the best comedies), then that definitely accounts for just how lame and unfunny the rest of this movie really is. A mass electrocution definitely does NOT top the bleak nuclear holocaust ending of Part 1, but the lack of anything resembling being cool here (save for maybe Karen and Mathews playing out their schtick again complete with some reused dialogue from Part 1) kind of kills it for this sequel that found a handful of fans over the years but by and large was rejected by most people not for trying too hard to recapture the originalâs magic but rather for barely even trying to capture any magic at allâŚ
5/10