Juan Rayo
08-16-2005, 09:22 PM
Sometimes I wonder about Romero’s Zombies. Sure, I mean, part of the reason they always win out is because WE humans are stupid and turn against ourselves, paving the way for the slow, lumbering creatures to feast on human entrails. “But still”, I think to myself “they are SO slow… why; we could walk by them if we wanted”. Is there no place in the world that resisted them? No army? No nation?. Thinking about that (yeah, I AM a dork), I got my hands into “The Return of the living dead” and those questions became moot as soon as I took a look at THESE zombies. They may not be as classy as Romero’s, but you can easily picture them overrunning the world.
I had never seen this movie, and have not seen any of it’s sequels. Well, I saw it as a kid in someone’s betamax, but I could barely remember anything about it, except that it had grossed me out a bit. So I decided to give it another go now that I have a somewhat better “horror” education. When it ended, all I could think was “man I should have done that SOONER”. The movie is great.
It came in 1985, smack in the middle of a “morals regression” spearheaded in the political front by Reagan and Tatcher, and also in the apogee of pop’s culture most mediocre time (Jackson, CindyLauper, Culture Club, sheesh) and it works against both, breaking ranks with the “kids have sex and die only virgin survives” motive of the slasher films and siding with the metal tunes that, back there, seemed rebellious and full of energy.
At the same time, while very funny (and not in the “repeat lame jokes ad eternum” way of some latter horror movies) and with a VERY generous amount of nudity, the movie manages to go from comedy horror to sober, almost sad at the very end, and it works great. It pays a very obvious tribute to the Romero films (and as well it should), but then goes completely in it’s own way.
Director Dan O’Bannon should be very well know to horror fans. The man has been involved in a lot of projects dearly appreciated in the genre. He has writing credits for “Darkstar”(1974) alongside John Carpenter, co-writing the story for “Alien” (1979), Story for the"Soft Landing" and "B-17" segments in the great Heavy Metal (1981), some “Blue Thunder” stuff from 1983 to 1984 (including creating the TV series), until finally directing The Return of the Living Dead in 1985. Since then, he wrote the screenplay for the great, Tobe Hopper directed Lifeforce (1985), writing credits for Aliens (1986), Total Recall (1990), Alien 3 (1993), Screamers (1995), Bleeders (1997), Alien Resurrection (1997) and the only real dud I can see him in, AvP in 2004.
“The return of the Living Dead” starts with a caption warning us that everything in the movie is based on “real events, all names and company names mentioned are real”. I knew from there I would like this. It continues with a rather humorous tone, and takes it’s time to start as nearly 8 minutes go by until the opening credits start to roll. The story goes like this: a couple of employees at a medical supply warehouse –Frank (James Karen) and Freddy (Thom Mathews) - “accidentally” release a deadly gas (“3,4,5 trioxin”, originally developed to spray marihuana fields!) that makes the dead come back… see, the good old government had been keeping the zombies from “Night of the Living dead” (yeah! How about that for a nod!) in some kind of canister. As Burt explains, they can never leak, being as they are design and built by the US Army Engineer corps. Of course, the canisters start leaking and the great Kentucky zombie derby begins.
To solve the problem, they call their boss (of course!) Brilliantly played by Glu Gulager, and together they decided to take the recently reawakened corpse to a nearby funeral home, where Ernie Kaltenbrunner (Don Kalfa) makes for a magnificent soft spoken, gun totting portrayal of an embalmer.
In the meantime, Freddy’s girlfriend, all around nice girl Tina (Beverly Randolph) sporting a dress straight out the “Thriller” video decides to go looking for her boyfriend, taking along her somewhat strange choice of friends: ultra punk “Suicide” (Mark Venturini), Trash (Linnea Quigley), Spider (Miguel Nuñes), Chuck (John Philbin), Cuz (Brian Peck) and Casey (Jewel Shepard). As the different players converge on the mortuary/cemetery setting, the stage is set for the gore to begin. And that it does.
While it turns rather quickly into a “survivors trapped and surrounded by Zombies” plot we have seen done a lot, it somehow seems original. The acting greatly helps, as Freddy and Frank have great chemistry together, and when they are, huh, “removed” from the spotlight, their place is taken by Burt and Ernie, keeping the dialogue flowing easily, funny and believable. One can truly believe these characters are real. That’s not to say everything works, of course. When the movie ended, I could not fathom what reason did Chuck and Casey have in the movie, other than stretching the running time and provide some funny lines.
With the cemetery (who named it “Resurrection” anyways? That’s just asking for trouble) and Mortuary (with the “Wee chapel of the dawn”) as settings, the movie moves fast and perfectly paced.
Mr. O’Bannon direction is very capable, showing an eye not only for camp (the split dog!) and gore, but also for actors, making the most out of the good people he had to work with in this one. The humour is nicely done, and it respects the characters, something that I really enjoyed. The paramedics, for example, are no joke, they are clearly professionals who know what they are doing and act believably (fat lot of good it does them of course). There are also little nuances to the characters that work very well. Notice Frank’s demeanour as he prepares to call his boss, or Ernie’s action as zombie-Freddy is about to burst thru the trap door.
Also, it’s no wonder Mathilda May spends most of her time naked in “Lifeforce”, since O’Bannon was involved with it. To see what I mean, just look at what he had Linnea Quigley doing, and I must say, she carried it on PERFECTLY. “Trash” is a tramp, she is a slut, and she shines on it. Kudos to Mss. Quigley for knowing how to play the minutiae of a character, I mean, notice the scene in front of the cemetery when she gets down of the car and you’ll KNOW what I mean.
The movie can be separated in two parts. It starts as comedy, and some 45 minutes into the story things get really gory, really fast. Sadly, they a get a bit silly too, since talking zombies do not normally have great lines besides the already muttered “brains”. The second part is also where the soundtrack most diverges from the movie, I’m sorry, but I just don’t have a sweet ear for hair metal and it really was a minus for me.
As for the special effects, Mr. Bill Munns did a terrific job. While there aren’t really a LOT of gore scenes, they are very well done. The zombies themselves are strong, fast, and to make it worse, really smart. Plus, there’s a LOT of them. Once you see them charging the police barricades, you get a feeling of how really, utterly unstoppable they are, and that’s a scary thought.
Sadly, the 80’s bad rock that permeates the scores is the one thing that detracts from the movie, and it really took me out of the flow of things. Admittedly, I just hate most of the 80’s hair rock, so it could be just me.
I have to comment on the script, as is very smartly written, I mean, the movie is a quote fest and I had a hard time deciding which ones to use in the “five things” section below. Some of the lines are guaranteed to make you chuckle and, of course, the “Brains” thing is already the stuff of legends.
Finally, the movie spawned a series of sequels (at least two that I am aware of) that I haven’t seen, but would certainly like to, even with Mr. O’Bannon’s absence, if they can manage to be half as funny and gory as this one I would certainly enjoy them.
The Taglines perfectly capture the spirit of this movie: “They're back...They're Hungry...And they're NOT vegetarian” , “They're Back From The Grave and Ready To Party!”, “I love you - I want to eat your brains”.
All in all, this is a great, fun movie and one that deserves a place into any zombie bigot / horror fan DVD collection.
Five things about this movie:
. 17:15 The zombie dog!!
. 18:06 The zombie butterflies! (I shit you not)
. 20:00 Trash does her thing, God bless her.
. 44:36 “Brains!” the stuff of legend is born.
. 57:47 Zombie on the ambulance radio:
“Come in, dispatch..send..more..paramedics” (and later) “Send more cops…”.
Rad!
I had never seen this movie, and have not seen any of it’s sequels. Well, I saw it as a kid in someone’s betamax, but I could barely remember anything about it, except that it had grossed me out a bit. So I decided to give it another go now that I have a somewhat better “horror” education. When it ended, all I could think was “man I should have done that SOONER”. The movie is great.
It came in 1985, smack in the middle of a “morals regression” spearheaded in the political front by Reagan and Tatcher, and also in the apogee of pop’s culture most mediocre time (Jackson, CindyLauper, Culture Club, sheesh) and it works against both, breaking ranks with the “kids have sex and die only virgin survives” motive of the slasher films and siding with the metal tunes that, back there, seemed rebellious and full of energy.
At the same time, while very funny (and not in the “repeat lame jokes ad eternum” way of some latter horror movies) and with a VERY generous amount of nudity, the movie manages to go from comedy horror to sober, almost sad at the very end, and it works great. It pays a very obvious tribute to the Romero films (and as well it should), but then goes completely in it’s own way.
Director Dan O’Bannon should be very well know to horror fans. The man has been involved in a lot of projects dearly appreciated in the genre. He has writing credits for “Darkstar”(1974) alongside John Carpenter, co-writing the story for “Alien” (1979), Story for the"Soft Landing" and "B-17" segments in the great Heavy Metal (1981), some “Blue Thunder” stuff from 1983 to 1984 (including creating the TV series), until finally directing The Return of the Living Dead in 1985. Since then, he wrote the screenplay for the great, Tobe Hopper directed Lifeforce (1985), writing credits for Aliens (1986), Total Recall (1990), Alien 3 (1993), Screamers (1995), Bleeders (1997), Alien Resurrection (1997) and the only real dud I can see him in, AvP in 2004.
“The return of the Living Dead” starts with a caption warning us that everything in the movie is based on “real events, all names and company names mentioned are real”. I knew from there I would like this. It continues with a rather humorous tone, and takes it’s time to start as nearly 8 minutes go by until the opening credits start to roll. The story goes like this: a couple of employees at a medical supply warehouse –Frank (James Karen) and Freddy (Thom Mathews) - “accidentally” release a deadly gas (“3,4,5 trioxin”, originally developed to spray marihuana fields!) that makes the dead come back… see, the good old government had been keeping the zombies from “Night of the Living dead” (yeah! How about that for a nod!) in some kind of canister. As Burt explains, they can never leak, being as they are design and built by the US Army Engineer corps. Of course, the canisters start leaking and the great Kentucky zombie derby begins.
To solve the problem, they call their boss (of course!) Brilliantly played by Glu Gulager, and together they decided to take the recently reawakened corpse to a nearby funeral home, where Ernie Kaltenbrunner (Don Kalfa) makes for a magnificent soft spoken, gun totting portrayal of an embalmer.
In the meantime, Freddy’s girlfriend, all around nice girl Tina (Beverly Randolph) sporting a dress straight out the “Thriller” video decides to go looking for her boyfriend, taking along her somewhat strange choice of friends: ultra punk “Suicide” (Mark Venturini), Trash (Linnea Quigley), Spider (Miguel Nuñes), Chuck (John Philbin), Cuz (Brian Peck) and Casey (Jewel Shepard). As the different players converge on the mortuary/cemetery setting, the stage is set for the gore to begin. And that it does.
While it turns rather quickly into a “survivors trapped and surrounded by Zombies” plot we have seen done a lot, it somehow seems original. The acting greatly helps, as Freddy and Frank have great chemistry together, and when they are, huh, “removed” from the spotlight, their place is taken by Burt and Ernie, keeping the dialogue flowing easily, funny and believable. One can truly believe these characters are real. That’s not to say everything works, of course. When the movie ended, I could not fathom what reason did Chuck and Casey have in the movie, other than stretching the running time and provide some funny lines.
With the cemetery (who named it “Resurrection” anyways? That’s just asking for trouble) and Mortuary (with the “Wee chapel of the dawn”) as settings, the movie moves fast and perfectly paced.
Mr. O’Bannon direction is very capable, showing an eye not only for camp (the split dog!) and gore, but also for actors, making the most out of the good people he had to work with in this one. The humour is nicely done, and it respects the characters, something that I really enjoyed. The paramedics, for example, are no joke, they are clearly professionals who know what they are doing and act believably (fat lot of good it does them of course). There are also little nuances to the characters that work very well. Notice Frank’s demeanour as he prepares to call his boss, or Ernie’s action as zombie-Freddy is about to burst thru the trap door.
Also, it’s no wonder Mathilda May spends most of her time naked in “Lifeforce”, since O’Bannon was involved with it. To see what I mean, just look at what he had Linnea Quigley doing, and I must say, she carried it on PERFECTLY. “Trash” is a tramp, she is a slut, and she shines on it. Kudos to Mss. Quigley for knowing how to play the minutiae of a character, I mean, notice the scene in front of the cemetery when she gets down of the car and you’ll KNOW what I mean.
The movie can be separated in two parts. It starts as comedy, and some 45 minutes into the story things get really gory, really fast. Sadly, they a get a bit silly too, since talking zombies do not normally have great lines besides the already muttered “brains”. The second part is also where the soundtrack most diverges from the movie, I’m sorry, but I just don’t have a sweet ear for hair metal and it really was a minus for me.
As for the special effects, Mr. Bill Munns did a terrific job. While there aren’t really a LOT of gore scenes, they are very well done. The zombies themselves are strong, fast, and to make it worse, really smart. Plus, there’s a LOT of them. Once you see them charging the police barricades, you get a feeling of how really, utterly unstoppable they are, and that’s a scary thought.
Sadly, the 80’s bad rock that permeates the scores is the one thing that detracts from the movie, and it really took me out of the flow of things. Admittedly, I just hate most of the 80’s hair rock, so it could be just me.
I have to comment on the script, as is very smartly written, I mean, the movie is a quote fest and I had a hard time deciding which ones to use in the “five things” section below. Some of the lines are guaranteed to make you chuckle and, of course, the “Brains” thing is already the stuff of legends.
Finally, the movie spawned a series of sequels (at least two that I am aware of) that I haven’t seen, but would certainly like to, even with Mr. O’Bannon’s absence, if they can manage to be half as funny and gory as this one I would certainly enjoy them.
The Taglines perfectly capture the spirit of this movie: “They're back...They're Hungry...And they're NOT vegetarian” , “They're Back From The Grave and Ready To Party!”, “I love you - I want to eat your brains”.
All in all, this is a great, fun movie and one that deserves a place into any zombie bigot / horror fan DVD collection.
Five things about this movie:
. 17:15 The zombie dog!!
. 18:06 The zombie butterflies! (I shit you not)
. 20:00 Trash does her thing, God bless her.
. 44:36 “Brains!” the stuff of legend is born.
. 57:47 Zombie on the ambulance radio:
“Come in, dispatch..send..more..paramedics” (and later) “Send more cops…”.
Rad!