The Return of the Living Dead (1985)

 

Following the success of 'Alien', screenwriter Dan O'Bannon wanted to try something completely different. So why not a darkly comedic zombiefilm and direct it as well? So what we got was a modern day classic, filled to the brim with twisted humour and gore ànd memorable characters spewing insanely quotable dialogue.

Yep, this one is a great ride from start to finish, no question about it. 

O'Bannon knew he couldn't just copy Romero as this would make this film just a poor substitute for the great 'Night of the Living Dead'-series. Instead, O'Bannon thought it would be a great idea to act as though the events from the Romero-film actually happened for real and that the government covered it up. Simple, yet brilliant. 

We meet up with Freddy and Frank, two employees at the Uneeda Medical Supply. Frank explains that they have some original zombies in tanks in the basement, but after showing these corpses to Freddy, one of the canisters cracks and releases a toxin into the warehouse, bringing a very real corpse back to life. They call their boss Burt and decide they are going to kill this undead.

Things don't go according to plan however, when it transpires that merely destroying the brain has no effect and even while dismembered, this body keeps on moving. They then head out to a nearby crematorium as they figure burning the remains would do away with this pesky problem. Meanwhile, Freddy and Frank are getting sicker by the minute from the chemical. 

As they burn the remains, Freddy's friends are waiting for him at the nearby cemetery, and while the rain falls and washes the smoke from the reanimated corpse plus chemicals back into the ground, there is a rather unwelcome side effect: the dead are revived and lust for brains. Who will now make it out alive? 

Right from the get-go, the stakes are a lot higher than with other zombies, as here even limbs continue to have a life of their own because simply bashing in the skulls of the undead does absolutely nothing. These undead feast only on brains as this dulls the pain of being dead. So O'Bannon manages to make things different enough to stay fresh. He also fills the film with characters that are colourful and a little over the top, yet engaging. Ernie, the proprietor of the funeral home is clearly a stab at the classic 'hidden nazi scientist', for example. The teenagers are all extremely exaggerated and yet recognizable as teen tropes (the punk, the loafer, the party girl, the square...) but you won't hate a single one of them. 

Most of the zombies are just people in earthy makeup, but some of the more intricate ones are expertly done. The half woman they interrogate is a great puppet with excellent movement and if there is a more memorable zombie than the classic 'Tar-Man', then it might only be Bub from 'Day of the Dead'. These zombies also speak, which makes for a great gag in which they kill paramedics and then realize they can have more by asking: "Send more paramedics."

And in the witty dialogue, this film truly shines. The punk Suicide lamenting that people think his outfit is just for show? Frank explaining the events from the Romero-film? The "rabid weasels"? The colonel in charge of the zombie retrieval who truly doesn't give a flying fudge? 

All awesome. 

The perfect blend of comedy and horror, 'The Return of the Living Dead' is one of those classic zombiefilms that you really have to have seen. The sequels diminished greatly in quality, which is a shame, but they also didn't have the involvement of O'Bannon and they did take themselves a little too seriously as well. But this one is still a highly entertaining piece of film.