Rated R

Directed by Dan O’Bannon

Directed by Dan O’Bannon

Starring Clu Gulager, James Karen, Don Calfa, Thom Matthews, Beverly Randolph

The Return of the Living Dead has always been a strong staple in the zombie movie genre. Since it’s original release in 1985, it has reached a level of cult status rightfully so .While watching this movie as a kid it used to scare the shit out of me, I’ll never forgot how many sleepless nights I spent because of this movie. There was something about The Return of the Living Dead that was just disturbing compared to most horror films. It’s really hard to say what made this film so great and at the same time so utterly revolting. One thing for sure I love my zombie flicks and this I one is ranked as one of my all time favorites.

The Story begins primarily with the introduction of Frank (James Karen) and Freddy (Thom Mathews) and revolves around a group of key characters. Its Freddy’s first day on a new job at the Uneeda Medical Supply Warehouse. Frank is his supervisor, and as the movie begins he’s showing Freddy the ins and outs of his new job.

The Uneeda medical warehouse, deals in anything in medical equipment and supplies. They sell everything from bed pans, crutches and wheel chairs for hospitals use, to dogs, split down the center for veterinary students. They even supply freshly deceased cadavers for med students to practice on.

During the early scenes of the film Freddy asks Frank what is the weirdest thing that he has ever seen comes through the doors of Uneeda. It’s here that Frank goes on to explain how the classic 1968 film Night of the Living Dead was really a true story based in actual events and that the director had to change many of the facts in his film in order to avoid severe legal problems. Frank then tells that the army covered up the incident and that because of a mistake in shipping, several of the corpses arrived at Uneeda’s doorstep. Frank then proceeds to tell Freddy that some of those corpses were at this very moment stored in the basement and the two quickly rush downstairs to the basement so Frank show Freddy that the corpses really exist.

The bodies are sealed within huge metal canisters and when Frank taps on the side of one to assure Freddy that they are safe it springs a leak. A cloud of yellow toxic gas sprays them in the face, rendering then unconscious. After a while the two eventually recover and learn that the fumes from the tank have made them really sick. It has also reanimated all the cadavers in the entire building. The split veterinary dogs start barking and the dead butterflies pinned to the sample board flap their wings. Also the fresh cadaver locked in the refrigerator decides that he really wants to get out of the cold.

Franks and Freddy realize that they’ve really messed up and try to think of a way to cover their asses. They call the company’s owner and their boss - Burt (Clu Gulager). When Burt arrives he’s seriously pissed off at our bumbling duo, he’s also worried that if news of this fiasco gets out, his business might suffer for it and he might wind up in jail. Eventually the three decide to get rid of all the evidence of what has transpired to avoid any unnecessary publicity that could hurt Uneeda’s reputation. First on the agenda is to dispose of the frozen corpse that wants to get out of the freezer. So how do you kill a zombie? Destroy the brain of course.

Well unfortunately it’s not that easy, because after driving a pickaxe through the zombies head and nailing it to the floor the zombie continues to thrash around on the floor.

Madness breaks out as the trio tries to dismember the body, but even this has little effect as the individual body parts attack them. Burt decides that they should take the body to the mortuary next door and completely burn the corpse away in the crematorium.

It’s at the mortuary that Ernie Kaltenbrunner, (Don Calfa) a long time friends of Burt’s works as the head cremator. When they tell Ernie their ridiculous story about a botched shipment and a bunch of killer weasels, the group decides to comes clean and tell him the truth. Burt explains to Ernie that the bags they have brought over don’t contain weasels, but the re-animated body parts of a cadaver.

After seeing for himself first-hand, Ernie helps them with their problem and operates the crematorium for them. He reassures them that the body will burn up completely and that nothing will remains but a pile of ashes.

Their problems seem to be over, if it weren’t for the smoke rising from the chimney contains the same toxins that started this whole mess in the first place. The toxins rain down from the sky and seep into the earth of the cemetery next door. It’s here in this graveyard that Freddy’s friends, a bunch of punk rockers, along with his girlfriend are waiting for him to get off work to go party. To bad for our bunch the rain has begun to reanimate the dead.

This is where the carnage really begins. I’ll keep the rest of the movie secret for those of you who have not seen it.

I love this movie it marries graphic violence and comedic elements to set itself apart from earlier horror movies of the decade. The Return of the Living Dead is an enjoyable horror/comedy, and one that is certainly worth seeing.

The Return of the Living Dead comes both in full frame 4×3 version as well as a 1.85:1 version on a double sided disc. The film has also been enhanced for 16×9 wide screen televisions.

The picture has remained crisp and detailed throughout. The colors are also very bright and vibrant. The worst defects occur during wide angled exterior shots in which you can clearly see some level of grain, but fortunately these types of shots are minimal. The film also contains some speckling, but after a while you hardly notice them anymore.

While the image quality of the film is less than perfect, it easily surpasses VHS. Fans will still be pleased, despite the imperfections.

The Return of the Living Dead comes with its original mono soundtrack. The sound throughout the film was surprisingly good .The voices are clear and the sound effects, including the music were well executed. Though this movie certainly shouldn’t be used to show off your surround sound system, it is a great sounding film in its own right. The DVD also includes English, French and Spanish subtitles.

The Return of the Living Dead comes complete with a few extras. First up we have a feature length audio commentary by director Dan O’Bannon and production designer William Stout.

Next we have a short featurette entitled Designing the Dead. This segment runs for approximately 13 minutes and 37 seconds. In this featurette O’Bannon discusses about how the opportunity to work on The Return of the Living Dead was presented to him and how he tried to avoid stepping on Romero’s toes by making his own film more of a comedy.

Stout talks about his role designing the film and the look he wanted for the film. There’s also a lot of his fantastic artwork shown. Stout also goes on to talk about the creation and portrayal of the film’s most famous zombie - the Tarman.

Overall this segment was very informative and interesting.

Conceptual Artwork by William Stout gives us a peak at the pre-production work that went into the making of the film. Throughout the segments 77 screenshot see everything from some of the original story boards to some of the production artwork that Stout showed us in the previous segment.

Next we get TV Spots.

Last but not least we get the original Theatrical Trailers. There are 2 versions of this trailer, the G-Rated and R-Rated. The 2 trailers vary quite a bit in what they show of the film.

I don’t want to come across as completely biased, I will say this. Zombie movies tend to be a “love it” or “hate it” thing. For me I thoroughly enjoy the subject unlike my wife who really gets annoyed at how much useless trivia I know about the whole genre. I can remain unbiased when it comes to evaluating a film’s picture and sound quality, but when it comes to the movie itself, this one is a must own.