Movies - Return of the Living Dead

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	Movies - Return of the Living Dead

Return of the Living Dead is a horror film that was released in 1985. It was followed by several sequels.

The film came about as a dispute between John Russo and George A. Romero over how to handle sequels to their 1968 film, Night of the Living Dead
. The two reached a settlement wherein Romero's sequels would be referred to as the Dead movies, and Russo's sequels would bear the prefix Living Dead. Thus, each man was able to do what he pleased with the series, while still having one another's work distinct and be considered canon. Following this decision, Russo wrote a horror novel, Return of the Living Dead, which he planned on adapting into a film script. Although the film rights were initially sold in 1979, they were passed along by several different studios and directors before finally being obtained by Tobe Hooper, for whom Russo wrote a script. Hooper dropped out of the project, though, and the script never came to fruition.

Following Hooper's departure from the project, Russo, along with his new partner, Dan O'Bannon, wrote a new script (with Russo adapting it into an accompanying novel), also entitled The Return of the Living Dead. This project alleviated confusion amongst fans of Romero's work by including a scene in which a character acknowledges the George Romero films and explains that while they are based on true events, the events of the Return series are the "true story." In addition to this separation of the storylines, the films in the Return series are markedly more comedy based than Romero's films, with slapstick humor, sight gags, toilet humor, and an abundance of nudity and teenage sex.

Although Russo and O'Bannon were only directly involved with the first film in the series, the rest of the films, to varying degrees, stick to their outline and "rules" established in the first film.

Plot

Medical supply warehouse foreman Frank (James Karen) informs his new protege, Freddy (Thom Matthews) that Night of the Living Dead was a true story, based on events that occurred when a gas (2-4-5 Trioxin) was released into the morgue in the basement of a VFW hospital. As a matter of fact, the warehouse was in the inadvertent recipient of a canister of Trioxin years ago, complete with a dead body--"Tarman"-- sealed inside. Due to the canister's less than stellar durability, however, a light tap causes it to burst open, not only poisoning Frank and Freddy, but unleashing the now animated Tarman (Allan Trautman). Frank and Freddy awaken to discover that the various body parts (and bodies) in the warehouse are now alive, including disembodied hands and a dissected dog. Themselves slowly turning into zombies due to the effects of the gas, Frank and Freddy enlist the help of the warehouse owner, Burt (Clu Gulager), and his mortician friend, Ernie (Don Calfa), to cremate the cadaver and body parts. Unfortunately, the resulting smoke carries the evaporated trioxin with it, which mixes with an overhead raincloud. The rain begins to fall on the nearby cemetery, seeping into the graves causing the dead to rise. Their first victims are Freddy's friends, who have been partying among the graves.

The zombies differ in this movie, in that they are fast, as intelligent as they were in their previous life, and can form words even when they are merely very degraded bodies. Instead of hunting humans for their flesh, they hunt for the humans' brains, stating that only the taste of brains can ease their suffering. It appears that injuries to their brains do not have any effect, and the only way to fully destroy them is to cremate their bodies, although the ensuing smoke also spreads the contagious gas.

Trivia

The film was released on August 16th, 1985, and made $14m at the box office in the USA, nearly double the amount earned by Day of the Dead
, a film made by Russo's former partner George A. Romero
and released the same year.
The film gained quick popularity largely due to the performance of Linnea Quigley
, who as the "punk queen" Trash performs a full-frontal, gyrating strip-show on top of a tombstone while blasting Stacey Swain's "Tonight (We'll Make Love Until we Die)" on a boom box. Her appearance not only helped to garner the film popularity, but it cemented her place as an 80s horror icon and "scream queen".
Throughout the 1980s, the film gained a strong following with the punk music scene; not only were a large number of the main characters punks themselves, but the film features an almost exclusively punk rock soundtrack. When the film was finally released on DVD in the early 2000s after years of limited availibility in a poorly edited VHS release, it became a best-seller due to what is considered a high nostalgia factor of 1980s pop culture.
The Ernie character is believed to be a Nazi, and there are several references to back this up, but none more so evident than the character's name, which he shares with noted Nazi Ernst Kaltenbrunner.
The film features three actors who have been Friday the 13th films: Miguel A. Núñez Jr.
and Mark Venturini
, both of which were in Friday the 13th: A New Beginning
. Thom Mathews is as much well known for his role in this film, as he is as Tommy Jarvis
in Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives
.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Return of the Living Dead ]

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Movies - Return of the Living Dead

Plot

Trivia

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