The Return of the Living Dead (1985) Review

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

The worst thing that can happen in life itself is remaining alive after being declared dead.


PLOT


1985's The Return of the Living Dead take place in 7/3/84 Louisville, Kentucky, and follows foreman Frank Johnson train new employee Freddy Hanscom at the Uneeda Medical Supply Warehouse. He makes the mistake of impressing him by showing him medical drums of the toxic gas, Trioxin, that was a delivery error years before and allegedly inspired George Romero's The Night of the Living Dead. When he hits the side of the drum to prove it's secure, it unleahses toxic gas that resurrects trapped in one of the drums and another hidden in the meat locker. He alerts their boss Burt Wilson of the incident and they try dismembering the body, but it doesn't work the way it did in the movie. Still not wanting to alert authorities, they go to the nearby crematorium and enlist the help of the coroner Ernie Kaltenbrunner to incinerate it, but it causes the gas to contaminate the air, creating a toxic rainfall that reawakens other corpses in the nearby cemetery. In the meanwhile, Freddy's girlfriend Tina waits for him at the cemetery with her punk ensemble of friends: Casey, Chuck, Scuz, Spider, Suicide and Trash. When Tina wanders the basement while Trash stripteases on a gravestone, the former encounters a reanimated corpse from the barrel that tries to eat her brain. The group does save her in the nick of time, but Suicide and Trash get eaten as the rest go to hide in the mortuary while Chuck & Casey remain in the warehouse. When Frank & Freddy start falling ill, paramedics arrive to confirm they should be dead due to low body temperature, but are still conscious. A re animated Trash then starts feasting with the other zombies and the horde kills Scuz who was trying to barricade the place, as well as paramedics and arriving officers. The remaining group do manage to grab one of the half corpses who speaks and explains they're all eating to numb the pain of their own deaths. As Frank and Freddy start turning, Burt locks them in the chapel. When Freddy eventually tries to eat Tina, it prompts the others to blind him with a strong acid. When Frank escapes during the chaos, he has enough self control to take his own life before he can hurt anybody, climbing into the cremator. As they all try leaving via cop car, Trash taking the lead of pursuing causes Burt & Spider to separate from Ernie & Tina. The former two go back to the warehouse with Casey & Chuck and kills the zombie in the basement. Burt then contacts the police again for backup, only to find out the horde overran them. With no choice, he calls Colonel Glover (Jonathan Terry) who knew of the missing drums. Knowing that zombies are taking over the arena, the film ends with him making the tough solution by summoning a nuclear artillery by sunrise, taking the lives of the remaining survivors of the group and almost 4,000 other people within the blast zone but only awakens more corpses from another toxic rainfall. 


THOUGHTS


There have been many zombie movies that have looked at as shocking over the years, but this has to be the one that set the tone on how bonkers it can be as well, whereas everything can be all over the place and still be entertaining. The pressure was one for Dan O’Bannon to pull this off in his directorial debut, with the assist of cowriters John Russo & Russell Streiner. And despite all the struggle that was said to occur behind the scenes, I think this was a general payoff. This is the kind of film that you can call a cousin to an already established franchise, since Russo had cowritten The Night of the Living Dead with Romero, but it definitely doesn’t come off since the rules are different here. These zombies had to be incinerated to be defeated, but the irony of that making it worse sure creates pure terror down the line, thus giving us amazing special effects from the likes of Tony Gardner, William Stout & William Munns. Whether it is seeing half a corpse moving or displayed butterflies moving in sync, it’s definitely impressive detailing in the long run and the punk soundtrack sure makes it exciting as the story goes along. While I prefer Romero’s Day of the Dead that came out a month before, this one still stands out for being the exact opposite of what you’re expecting because it straight up shows the consequences of being hubris and futile. I mean this story starts with a middle aged man trying to impress a protege for gods sake and while that’s hilarious at first, it doesn’t feel such when the consequences actually happen. While it does seem like the characters are one noted as you watch along, you still can’t help try rooting for them since most of them do their best facing the threat head on rather than avoid it. It was definitely on Frank to think without caution when showing off the drums, but James Karen made us oddly respect him when he was at his lowest and chose to try protecting everyone with his sacrifice. Thom Matthews was then solid as Freddy because he’s too arrogant to walk away, but you then respect him too for not wanting to make it worse, hence tagging along with the idea of incineration. Clu Gulager made Burt the ideal boss you want though because even though he should’ve returned the drums a long time ago, he did his best in wanting to solve the problem before it got worst. Ernie then came off a bit of a creep since there is a bit of an implication he could be a Nazi, but you still respect the pragmatism he shared when it came to getting rid of a big problem. As for the punk group, they’re the ones that are most one noted, yet each still stand out for being loud spoken in their own way. Beverly Randolph was the only one to not be as such because Tina was the only soft spoken one, devoted to look after Freddy until she couldn’t. Miguel A Nunez Jr. made Spider the most resourceful, John Philbin made Chuck far too easygoing for his own good, Jewel Shepard depicted Casey the most loathsome, Brian Peck made Scuz the naive member of the group, Mark Venturini showed Suicide to be the crankiest and Linea Quigley made Trash far too comfortable with her wild thoughts and body positivity since it was bold of her to striptease on top of a gravestone. While none of these characters are ideal citizens, they definitely didn’t deserve to die anticlimactically. And since the artillery strike only woken more of the undead, the sequels proved it took a little longer for the terror to conclude. To wrap up, The Return of the Living Dead is up there as a classic zombie flick for being down to earth in terms of constant insanity. If zombies are your jam, it’s a no brainer you’ll check this out when you can.