Another easy one.

Return of the Living Dead is a fantastic movie, and one of the last films before John Russo went off the deep end and dedicated his career to producing mostly shit films. It marks the first films in the split between Russo and Romero after the two fell out after Night of the Living Dead. Russo retained the legal rights to the “Living Dead” name which is why Romero’s titles all took on the “of the Dead” moniker going forward.

In addition, Romero’s films continued the direction of thoughtful critiques of society while Russo’s went in the direction of absolute silliness. And I will honestly say that the zombies from Russo’s version (in part 1 and 2) are actually scarier than Romero’s. At least they terrified me more as a kid watching these films far before I was age appropriate to.

Return of the Living Dead stars some of my favorite actors of the era. Frank (James Karen) and his new hire Freddy (Thom Matthews) are hanging out in a medical supply warehouse where Frank is explaining that the events of Night of the Living Dead actually happened for real. Not only that but one of the barrels containing a petrified zombie had been delivered to the warehouse and left there out of some government bureaucratic mistake. Burt (Clu Gulager) joins them and the trio accidentally bring the dead back to life after reviving two corpses, cutting one up, and feeding it into a crematorium causing the ashes to rain down on the nearby cemetery.

The mortician is Ernie played by Don Calfa. I told you this film had a great cast.

And this is where I mention why Return’s zombies scared me more than Dawn’s. The zombies in Return of the Living Dead are smart, to the extent that they’re capable of critical though to some extent. The zombies in Romero’s films just kinda stumble around and only get the drop on the living through sheer plot convenience. Meanwhile the tar man (Allan Trautman) is capable of realizing he can put a winch on a closed door and pull it open. That’s horrifying.

Also the fact that the zombies in Return effective can’t be killed. You can take their head off, dismember them, and they’ll still stay conscious. Even if you try to cremate them their ashes will infect the environment. They can speak, they can almost be reasoned with, and they are completely unrelenting. The zombies in Romero’s just moan. The zombies in Return will have a conversation about how they’re going to eat your brains.

On the other side of the cast we have the no-good grunge gang composed of Spider (Miguel A. Núñez Jr.), Scuz (Brian Peck), Trash (Linnea Quigley), and Suicide (Mark Venturini). Quigley is still appearing in films as of 2022. You may recognize Brian Peck as the guy who was arrested in 2004 for sexually assaulting Drake Bell. He’s had a few uncredited roles since then, but nothing major.

The prop department deserves all of the awards for this movie. Standing out of course is the Tar Man zombie suit, as well as Trautman for pupeteering the thing and making it look so damn good. There’s a part early on where the dead start coming back to life and one of them is a half of a dog in the medical warehouse, and the thing is just wet and horrifying. You actually feel bad for the zombie dog when Freddy starts stomping on it and they added in dog yelping sound effects. The gore is fantastic as well, and so are the makeup effects as Freddy and Frank slowly die over the course of the film, succumbing to the trioxide.

If you haven’t seen the Return of the Dead movies, watch 1 and 2. If you’ve only seen 1 and 2, don’t watch any more. Just watch the first two. The second is from an era where sequels were basically the first movie re-told, but both films have a lot of quotable moments. Send more police. Even the moments where the props are total shit (the prop artist was fired and replaced with the person who made the really good props in reshoots) add to the charm this film has.

Rating: A