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Return of the Living Dead (1984)


Cast:

Clu "Was there any horror movie I wasn't in in the mid 80s?" Gulager is Burt Wilson
James Karen is Frank
Don "Angry mortician from Chopper Chicks in Zombietown" Calfa is Ernie Kaltenbrunner the Embalmer
Thom "How'd I get in Mean Guns?" Mathews is Freddy
Linnea "Could I be any more naked?" Quigley is Trash



What the box says:

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the cemetary...those brain-eating zombies are back and hungry for more tasty mortals. A fiendish mix of outrageous humor and heart-stopping terror, The Return of the Living Dead is a "veritable smorgasbord of fun" (L.A. Herald Examiner) filled with skin-crawling jolts, eye-popping visuals and relentless surprise!

On his first day on the job at an army surplus store, poor Freddy unwittingly releases nerve gas from a secret U.S. military canister, unleashing an unbelievable terror. The gas re-animates an army of corpses, who arise from their graves with a ravenous hunger...for human brains! And luckily for those carnivorous cadavers, there is a group of partying teens nearby, just waiting to be eaten!


Plot:

We see a disclaimer claiming everything in this movie is true.

At the Uneeda Medical Supply warehouse, Frank is showing the new guy Freddy around how to fill orders. Freddy is shown where the fresh cadavers are kept.

The victims, I mean, Freddy�s friends are wanting to party. But, they don�t have the brain cells to find a place to go. Tina, the wholesome girl, is waiting for her boyfriend Freddy to get off of work.


Have you ever seen a better group of movie victims?

In interest of getting the names of the victims straight. From left to right, Chuck, Casey the New Wave Chick, Trash the death gothy chick, Scum the Mohawk boy, Tina the wholesome, and Spider the nephew of Ken Foree.

Back at the warehouse, Freddy thumbing through a medical supply catalog asks Frank what is the weirdest thing he�s ever seen. Frank starts saying Night of the Living Dead was based on an actual incident. And, Romero had to make up the ending to keep from getting sued. The real story was a chemical spill in a morgue reanimated the corpses. The Army hushed it up. Due to a mistake some of the bodies were sent to Uneeda warehouse.

Freddy gets awfully jumpy after hearing this. Frank offers to show him the corpses. They go into the basement. After Freddy looks in a tank that holds one of the corpses, Frank beats the side of the tank that starts leaking. Frank and Freddy both inhale the fumes.

The corpse in the canister melts. The fumes from the tank get into the ventilation system, reanimating the cadaver in the deep freeze.

Elsewhere, a military officer has been searching for the missing canisters for years.

The victims along with the ultra facially-pierced Suicide drive up to pink up Freddy. Well, they decide to kill some time in nearby Resurrection Cemetery. This will be entitled mistake number 1. They break into the run-down graveyard.

Freddy and Frank wake up to find the melted corpse in the canister. They are both coughing. Hearing a dog bark, they investigate to find a dog split in half still barking. Frank immediately begins beating it. The cadaver in the deep freeze is pounding on the door.


How do we get Michael Jackson's bleaching agent off?
Our intrepid soon to be working stiffs are really disturbed by this. They can�t call the cops, decide to call Burt instead.

In the cemetery, we are about to have the most famous scene from the movie. Trash is fantasizing about death. The worst way to die for her would to be stripped and devoured by a group of old men. Well, Linnea Quigley gets all hot and bothered and rips her clothes to start dancing around the graveyard.

Burt arrives at the warehouse, chewing the workers out. They have to destroy all the bodies. But, how do you kill the dead? They remember from Night of the Living Dead to destroy the brain. Frank is to let the cadaver out of the deep freeze. He does. Burt manages to pin the cadaver to the floor. But, it is still twitching. Burt cuts the head off. The body staggers around. But, Frank, Freddy, and Burt manage to hog-tie the body. Burt realizes the body must be completely destroyed. Burt checks if Ernie is working late at the crematorium.

Back in the cemetery, the extremely naked Trash is practically dry-humping Suicide. He apparently is interested in making the beast with 2 backs in a graveyard.

In the funeral home, Ernie is finishing up a body. Burt pops in, has a big favor for him. Frank and Freddy bring in bags of �rabid weasels.� Ernie thinks the weasels should be put to sleep. Burt insists they should be incinerated. Ernie thinks that is too cruel. They show Ernie a severed arm that is still moving. Burt tells Ernie the story.

In the cemetery, everyone is waiting for Freddy. Tina goes over to the supply warehouse to find him. But, inside, she can�t find a soul.

Ernie wants to know what�s in it for him for doing the cremation. He agrees to burn the bodies. Frank and Freddy are looking awfully sick. The bodies have been burnt into ashes. The smoke drifts into the clouds. It begins to rain. The Victims run out of the cemetery, while the rain soaks into the ground.

Tina is still looking around the warehouse. The victims are in the car that won�t start.

The incineration continues as the rain seeps into the coffins.

Burt thinks everything is fine. Frank and Freddy are very sick. They tell the canister leaked gas which they inhaled. Frank rushes outside but is dragged back inside. Ernie calls an ambulance for them.

The first zombies begin crawling out of their graves.

Tina heads into the basement. Looking in the canisters, a zombie begins chasing her.

The victims head to the warehouse. As Tina is screaming for help, the victims run to her aid. Suicide is promptly eaten. The rest of the victims manage to escape the basement.

The ambulance arrives at the funeral home. They begin checking Frank and Freddy�s vital signs or lack thereof. They have no blood pressure, pulse and body temperature is room temperature.

The victims are barring the basement door. The victims have no idea who to call for help. They get the bright idea to go to the mortuary where Freddy is. The quickest way is through the cemetery. As 80s rock music summons skeletons and zombies from their graves, the victims split up. The very naked and wet Trash has her nightmare fulfilled.

The paramedics explain Frank and Freddy are clinically dead but can�t be. Pounding on the door, Burt lets Tina, Mohawk and Spider inside.

The zombies chase after Casey and Chuck who make it back to the supply warehouse.

The paramedics go to get stretchers. Hearing noises, they ignore them until it�s too late. The zombies promptly devour them.

Victims tell Burt and Ernie about the zombies. I hadn�t realized Burt and Ernie until now. Rubber ducky, you�re the one�

The zombies are trying to break into the warehouse.

The Victims try escaping with Burt and the rest. Tina is finally reunited with Freddy. Ernie checks on the paramedics and barely escapes a zombie midget! This movie officially has everything now.

They get back inside the mortuary and secure the windows and doors. The phones are dead so they can�t contact the police. Burt has to finally mention the chemical that has reanimated the corpse. Ernie finally realizes that Freddy and Frank are undergoing rigor mortis. Another ambulance pulls up outside and is swarmed by the living dead.

While trying to barricade a window, Scum the Mohawk by is eaten. They capture a zombie for Ernie to study. Apparently, the dead need to eat brains to ease the pain of death, feeling themselves rot. Spider, Burt, and Ernie can�t kill the zombies but burn the captured zombie to ashes.

The naked zombie Trash emerges. A Homeless guy sees a naked Linnea Quigley walk up to him. And he is promptly devoured in a bad way�

Police are being swamped with calls.

Chuck and Casey are still trapped in the warehouse.

Burt wants to lock Frank and Freddy up when they turn into flesh eating zombies. They�ll be locked in the chapel. Tina will stand by her man. I don�t think Tammy Wynette would stand by a guy turning into a zombie.

The police pull up to the mortuary, see the ambulances. They find a dead paramedic when the zombies overwhelm them.

Burt, Ernie, and Spider are debating about what to do.

Frank and Freddy are going through their death-throws. Freddy suddenly wants to eat Tina�s brain. Ernie, Burt, and Spider rescue Tina. Freddy is disfigured when some acid is thrown on his face.

Freddy is still trying to get them. The plan is to get one of the police cars. But, Ernie has broken his foot. Burt and Spider will get a police car to get Ernie and Tina. Well, Burt and Spider get to the car, when Burt decides to go for help instead.

There are too many zombies. Burt and Spider get to the warehouse and find Chuck and Casey.

Freddy is rampaging through the mortuary. Ernie and Tina get into the attic.

Frank starts the incinerator to cremate himself to prevent himself from killing anyone.

Police cars pull up around the cemetery. They are lured in and eaten by the zombies.

In the warehouse, Burt remembers the phone in the basement.

Ernie and Tina are cowering in the attic as the blinded Freddy keeps searching for them. Ernie readies his gun.

Burt manages to knock the head off the zombie in the basement. Burt tries calling the police. But, zombies are overrunning the police barricade. Burt calls the phone number on the side of the canister which is patched to Colonel Glover. He talks with Burt hearing the story so far. After getting off the phone, Glover calls the President, informing him that Louisville, Kentucky is swamped.

Burt tells the Victims the military has a contingency plan for the zombies.

A military officer receives a call and confirmation code. The coordinates and trajectory are plotted.

Burt hears something.

Freddy is breaking into the attic.

We see a mushroom cloud rise. Apparently, only 20 square blocks have been destroyed. The rain is taking care of the fires.

Colonel Glover thinks everything will be ok. The President is to visit Louisville tomorrow.

In the cemetery, more zombies rise from the ground.


What I say:

Well, I've hit a milestone. 150 reviews. Surely not that. I double checked just to make sure. It would be terrible embarrassing to be wrong about an anniversary like this. The past couple of years have been a lot rougher than I wanted. Well, I still haven't ascended my place as Master of Time and Space. These reviews are what I've called cheap therapy by distracting me from a number of my problems.

I try to be informative. Really, quit laughing, I do try. After Romero made Night of the Living Dead, a legal agreement was reached after he broke up with the partner. Romero was given the copyright on Night which is why his sequels are Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, and Land of the Dead. However, his partner had the copyright on Living Dead. He tried to make a movie several times before it finally fell into the lap of Dan O�Bannon, who wrote several scripts such as Alien. O'Bannon was only planned to write the script with Tobe "director of Texas Chainsaw Massacre" Hooper to direct. Well, that fell through, and O'Bannon was directing his first feature.

Now, we�ve got out the facts of the split between Night of the Living Dead and Return of the Living Dead. Romero made his zombies as slow-moving and as an almost unstoppable force. O�Bannon made his zombies harder to kill, faster. Romero wanted to use zombies to show social commentary. But, O'Bannon just wanted to make a zombie movie that was different from Romero's, hence the black humor.

The Victims as I dubbed them are an incredibly colorful bunch. It is hard to imagine punks and new wave teens hanging out together in the early 80s. Each of them stands out, not like the generic clones slaughtered in a Friday the 13th movie. And, in fact, until the last few seconds of the movie, most of them have survived. Scum, Trash, and Suicide were eaten. But, Tina, Chuck, Casey, and Spider were alive.

The ending seems like it was stolen from Beneath the Planet of the Apes. A giant nuclear explosion kills everyone. I would be tempted to think of the season finale of Sledge Hammer where he tries to disarm a nuclear bomb that detonates. And, the season afterwards never acknowledged the nuclear explosion in any form. But, the massive explosion that wipes everyone out hadn�t quite become the clich� it has today.

Clu Gallagher had a semi-revival in the mid 80s with horror movies: Uninvited, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy�s Revenge, Offspring, and Hidden. He plays a very take charge kind of guy even if he�s more determined for no zombies to ruin his business. It is a change of pace for the main characters to be some older guys.

Don Calfa as Ernie the embalmer is a riot. All gun-toting embalmers are hilarious. "Frankly, Burt, I think you acted precipitously in cutting up the corpse." Being more concerned with getting something for incinerating the zombies. He plays a pretty hilarious mad scientist in Chopper Chicks in Zombietown.

Thom Matthews and James Karen would star in Return of the Living Dead 2. They would play nearly the same roles as they were turned into zombies in it as well. I think we can relate to them so much for just screwing up something really big at work. Half the time, James Karen would tell Thom to shut up for bad-mouthing the job. They may be turning into zombies but mustn�t speak ill of the boss.

A couple of things in the background struck me. In the scene, where Frank and Freddy are trying to wipe the gas off, you can see an eye chart in the background. And, I was only able to read part of it my self. �BURT IS SLAVE DRIVER�� Actually, the other one that struck me was the name of the chapel in the mortuary: Wee Chapel of the Dawn. Resurrection Cemetery would be another in joke, too.

Well, for years we had ROTLD, the second with the kid, and the 3rd with the pierced girl...SCI-FI channel just debuted the 4th and 5th movies. I can't say I was that interested in seeing them. They sound more like the generic zombie movies but with Return of the Living Dead tacked onto gather more viewers or renters. Well, other horror movies have done the same thing. Has anyone kept track of the number of Hellraiser movies that have been made? It has to be close to beating the Witchcraft series.

In fact, I�m more surprised of the number of similarities between Return of the Living Dead and Re-Animator. The split animal is attacked. The headless body is staggering around. Granted, we don�t have a nude Barbara Crampton being fondled. We�ll just have to settle for the very naked Linnea Quigley in a role that burst her into being one of the definitive B-Movie Scream Queens of the 80s. Settling for Linnea Quigley instead of Barbara Crampton is kind of like being offered a free $10,000 in hundreds or fifties. Either way is a good thing.

A lot of horror-comedies fall for a few reasons. They aren�t scary or funny. And, the shotgun approach of if one gag doesn�t work, we�ve got 15 more jokes in the next minute is hard to really follow. Well, Scary Movie 2 had to be the most horrifying movie I ever saw. What foul inhuman Cthulu-like multi-tentacle monster would unleash that travesty upon an unsuspecting world? The same one that greenlighted Not Another Teen Movie.

ROTLD is more character driven than you would think. These aren't deep characterizations. However, when compared with the horror movie archetypes, they stand at dimension or 2 above them. Most of the 80s horror movies have the Friday the 13th personalities. Jock, brain, nerd, trollop, etc... This gang has the death obsessed chick, punk, guy, token Black guy, New Wave chick, Yuppie boy. You haven't seen such a wide variety of characters since the Warriors with all the widely bizarre gangs like the baseball Furies, Grammercy Riffs, etc...

This is definitely one of the movies that tried blending horror and comedy: splatterstick. I always thought the best description of splatterstick was the Three Stooges with a Chainsaw. ROTLD isn�t in the same dimension as say Evil Dead 2 for a true splatterstick classic. The gore isn't so off-the-wall as to reach the pinnacle of gross-out humor. Who needs Ben Stiller's hair gel or unlawful carnal knowledge of an apple pie? But, with the early and mid 80s being overloaded with derivative slasher movies, Return of the Living Dead was one of the first horror-comedy movies. At this time, Evil Dead was considered more a straight horror movie than its sequel would be known. The mid 80s saw the triumverate of Evil Dead 2, ROTLD, and Re-Animator begin the splatterstick sub-genre. The world was waiting for Peter Jackson's splatterstick classic movies: Bad Taste and Dead Alive.

In conclusion, my ramblings end just suddenly stop like that car ahead of you. Well, I intend to keep working on my reviews. Just the thought of preventing someone from doing something practical is my only reward unless wants to send cash or Gillian Anderson's phone number....Hey, a guy has to have dreams.



4 1/2 NINJAS

Quotable Dialogue

"All skeletons come from India."
"Let's get some light over here, Trash is taking her clothes off again."
"You mean the movie lied?"
"What the hell are you doing with a bunch of rapid weasels?"
"It's a puzzle. Because, technically, you aren't alive."
"Send more paramedics."
"This way, you, stupid honky."
"It looks like we've found that lost consignment of Easter Eggs."
"Archimedes, Hot dog, Rhubarb."


Morals of the Story

Skeletons are only an aisle from bedpans.
Any cemetary named Resurrection Cementary is the place to party.
Never discuss your most horrific death fantasy in a horror movie.
Lysol will remove reanimating agents from the air.
Zombie fumes can reanimate the dead.
Embalmers work smoking a pipe and carrying a pearl handled revolver.




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