Movie Review: The Return of the Living Dead (1984)

The Return of the Living Dead (1984) written and directed by Dan O'Bannon

A medical supplies facility has a new employee, Freddie (Thom Matthews). As he is shown the ropes, his co-worker (James Karen) takes him to the basement where some military containers are stored. They are full of corpses from a zombie outbreak. They accidentally release some chemicals from one of the containers, starting to bring other things in the facility to life, including a human cadaver in cold storage. They think they get things under control when the mortician next door burns the parts of the corpse (the had to hack it up to get it to stop attacking them), but that only makes the toxins airborne. Wouldn't you know it, a rain storm comes up and drops those toxins on the cemetery across the street which is full of punk teenagers who have nothing better to do than party at night in a graveyard. Things spiral out of control from there.

The movie is a comedy-horror hybrid of the sort that came out a lot in the 1980s (like Re-Animator). It has the excessive gore, the naked women, and the state-of-the-art visual effects that look a lot less convincing forty years later. I found it a bit much to take. The comedy is sporadic and, again, feels a bit dated. The movie is noteworthy because it introduced the idea that zombies want to eat brains specifically, not just any old human flesh. The zombies do a lot of talking along with their on-screen eating. One zombie is even made to explain how eating brains eases the pain of being dead. So the movie has had a big impact on zombie lore. I just did not find it satisfying as an action film, a horror film, or a comedy film.

Not recommended unless you want a bit of history or have a fondness for schlocky 1980s horror.