Return of the Living Dead

Because I love movies so much people tend to ask me all the time what’s my favorite.  My answer has always been Return of the Living Dead.

There is a sentimental reason for this. I was five or six years old when the film was realesaed. I remember wacthing the trailer on TV and being scared by the “tar man” that yeild out Briiiiiiaaaanns, at the same time I loved the punk rock song being played over the image.

I also remember my nany had a teenage son who loved horror movies and took me too see them all the time. sometimes my mom would pay him to take me to the movies on the weekend. I’m going to go out on the limb and assume she thought we were going to see a Disney cartoon or something.

Instead we went to the Kent Theatre. It was a dirty grimy grindhouse that existed in the Bronx up until 1989( Tim Burton’s Batman was the last movie I saw in the theatre ( or was it Twins, they both came out in the same year). If only it would have lasted another seven years so that the Tarantino era of filmmakers could have help it become a cinema landmark, instead it’s a gocery store now. Although I’m not sure the Kent was the kind of place that becames a historical landmark. Some of My foundest memories of the place is being totally disgusting. The bathroom smelled like pee way before you even got through the door, My feet where always stepping in something, getting all slippery and the seats were worn out and ripped up looking like a city for bed bugs, but all of this is overshadowed by me and Ramon spending two bucks to get into the theatre every saturnday and staying all day wacthing the best in 80s horror.

As far as I remember this was the first of many experiences. Return of the Living Dead acts as s spin off of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. Apparently, Romero and his producer Dan O’Bannon had a falling out about the franchise and O’Bannon decided to create his own universe while Romero famously went down his own path in the dead series. Brilliant (for the time at least) Return of the Living Dead starts of claiming that Return of the Living Dead is based on a true story. When Freddy is told the story by his new boss, Frank, they go down to the basement to see the prof and accdently start a zombie apocalypse.

O’Bannon changed the style of his zombies (a style that never caught on either). While Romero’s Zombies had a weakness that consist of shooting the undead in the head to (re) kill them, O’Bannon’s zombies could not be stopped unless the body was absolutely destroyed. On top of that, while Romero’s zombies die if you shoot them in the head, O’Bannon’s actually feed on brains like kids feed on cocaine ( Trust me it’s a good example). Another distinctive difference that actually defines the two types is Romero’s zombies are the slow Zombies, while O’Bannon did the fast zombies. An intresting difference in the Zombies because with the slow zombies more social commentary can be done to make the genre more sophisticated as it’s about living in the world of the dead. With Return of the Living Dead, the restlentless speed, despite some of these zombies having no legs, only allows for the character’s to run for their lives

The change in Zombie myth did make for some intresting special effects.  The movie takes place on three sets: a morge, a cementary, and a Medical supply shop. As such, everything came to life. From the archetype zombies you see in all zombie movies to just bare skeletons who need to feast  on the mind despite not even having anything that was even a digestive system. To this day I love the on camera speical effects used to create the monster. The creature feature zombies made from puppets and such thing still give me that eerie effect(Especially the Tar Man who was the patrient zero in the film)

I do feel like Return of the Living Dead still has great charters without the charter development that you get in most Zombie movies. It helps that the movie has a punk rock feel to it with most of the cast being teenagers who are reminiscent of the punk era at the time. Although two of my favorite charters in the film are the older non punks Burt and Errine ( I looked it up Sesemie street fans, those names are not a coincidence ) Burt is the man who owns the medical supply warehouse where the zombie outbreak began and is doing everything in his power to keep the situation under control but it only gets worse. Then we have Ernie whose calm Demeter is entertaining and his attempts to find out more about the zombies does put a little depth in the movie.

I wont shy away from what is possibly the most memorable part of the movie. B-movie queen, Leana Quailey plays a punk rock teen who gets naked in the cementaty and stays naked throughout the film, even after she becomes undead. It’s one of the hottest scenes in horror film history and defines the film.

Also, a shout out to Miguel A Neunez Jr. who plays spider. You may not realize this but Neunez has been in a ton of 80s horror movies, so much in fact that on the short lived Kenyon Ivoy Wayans show they poked fun at it by doing a monage of all his horror films stating he created the stereotype of black people dying first in horror films. I hate to semi-spoil the movie for you but technically Neunez is not the first to die at least.

Compared to the Romero version of the undead, Return of the Living Dead is campy, cheesy, and fluffy with very little substance, but I can’t help but to love it. The relentless zombies( espically the special effects puppets) are more scary than the slow zombies and I love the punk rock adutude that comes along with the memeablr soundtrack.