The Return of the Living Dead- Still hungry for brains after 35 years.

The Return of the Living Dead

1985

Director- Dan O'Bannon

Cast- Clu Gulager, James Karen, Don Calfa, Thom Mathews, Linnea Quigley, Jewel Shepard, Miguel A. Núñez Jr., Beverly Randolph, John Philbin, Brian Peck, Mark Venturini, Jonathan Terry, Cathleen Cordell, Allan Trautman

           

     A gang of punks, looking for a way to kill time, prowl the streets of Louisville Kentucky on 4^th of July weekend. Their personalities are as colorful as their names and attire. Spider (Miguel A. Núñez Jr.) is even tempered and good natured. Chuck (John Phiblin) is a doofus who has the hots for Casey (the eternally lovely Jewel Shepard) but she couldn’t care less about him. Skuzz (Brian Peck) is a mohawked, switchblade carrying punk but a loyal member of the gang. Tina (Beverly Randolph) is a complete square, which makes her a kind of outcast among outcasts. Suicide (Mark Venturini) is the hot tempered Alpha male. Trash (Linnea Quigley in her greatest role) is a nihilistic nympho looking for her next distraction.

           

     Tina’s boyfriend Freddy (Thom Mathews) seems to be the only member of the group responsible enough to hold a job. He works in the Uneeda medical supply warehouse- “You need it—We got it,” He is being shown the ropes by his older co-worker Frank (James Karen). Frank tells Freddy an interesting story about the dead coming to life. As it turns out, Night of the Living Dead was based on a “true story”, but the facts got changed all around to avoid law suits. What really happened was that a chemical defoliant was developed for the Army and a leak contaminated some corpses and made them jump around as though alive.

 To prove the veracity of his story, Frank takes Freddy into the warehouse’s basement where one of the corpses has been stored in a sealed container all these years. The tank ruptures releasing a cloud of toxin that causes a corpse in the freezer (it’s a medical supply warehouse remember) to come to life. But it’s not just jumping  around, it seems energetic and pissed off. Frank calls his boss Bert (Clu Gulager) who gives Frank an ass chewing and then decides the best thing to do is to cover it all up. Bert, Frank, and Freddy chop up the body but it doesn’t die. The pieces are still alive and moving! Bert decides it’s time to take drastic measures and enlists the help of Ernie (Don Calfa), the embalmer at a nearby funeral home. He tells Ernie what happened and asks to use his crematorium to burn up the reanimated pieces. Ernie reluctantly agrees. When the body burns, the smoke seeds the clouds with contamination that rains down into the local cemetery.

The gang of punks just happens to be hanging out in that cemetery killing time including watching Trash strip down and get naked in one of the most memorable scenes in horror movie history. The contaminated rain seeps down into the graveyard and the buried corpses come to life. The punks must seek refuge and team up with the guys at the funeral home to try and fend off an undead horde.

Full disclosure, this is my favorite horror movie ever. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen it, but I’m sure it’s in the triple digits.  I only wished I had been able to see it in the theatre when it came out, but I was only 11 years old so that wasn’t happening. I saw it on VHS when I was 13 and it changed my life (not to mention leaving a permanent impact on my choice of women, thank you very much Linnea Quigley!).

It’s a perfect movie in my opinion. There is absolutely no wasted time. Within the first 10 minutes of the film we know the premise of the film, we know the tone of the film (definitely horror-comedy) and we’ve met all of the characters save one. The humor has perfect timing. The gore and effects look great. The casting was spot on.

The film has an interesting origin. John A. Russo wrote George Romero’s seminal classic Night of the Living Dead. Russo and Romero went their separate ways, both retaining the right to make more films with the Living Dead title. Romero went on to make Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead (which came out the same year as Return of the Living Dead, only a month earlier). Russo had written a new script and it was picked up to become a movie with Tobe Hooper slated to direct it. Hooper dropped out to direct his awesome sexy space vampire movie Lifeforce (which also came out the same year about 2 months earlier- this was a great year for horror!). When Hooper dropped out, Dan O’Bannon was brought in to direct. He agreed on one condition. He didn’t want to step on what George Romero was doing so he opted to make his film a comedy, in contrast with Romero’s very serious films.

Dan was the perfect choice. As a screenwriter he had written Alien, Blue Thunder, segments for Heavy Metal and Hooper’s Lifeforce! He understood the art of movie making having worked on Star Wars and Alien. Return of the Living Dead was his directorial debut but you wouldn’t know it by the finished product.

There was a lot of other talent on display as well. Cinematography was by Jules Brenner who was the cinematographer for Salem’s Lot. Production design was by legendary fantasy artist William Stout who also worked on Raiders of the Lost Ark, Conan the Barbarian, Conan the Destroyer, Buck Rogers, First Blood, House and a hundred other things.

But the feather in this movie’s cap is the cast. Everyone was perfect for their roles, not a miscast in the bunch. Gulager, Karen, Calfa, and Mathews have perfect comic timing and work off of each other well. James Karen and Thom Mathews especially work well as the movie’s unlucky schmucks. Their chemistry seemed real and added so much to the film’s humorous tone.

Miguel A. Núñez Jr., as Spider, turns in a fine supporting performance as the punk who has to take on the mantle of leadership for his group. Jewel Shepard  makes Casey a kind of mix between a bitchy bad girl and a bored mallrat. Linnea Quigley though provides the image that everyone thinks of when this movie comes to mind. With her bright red hair and mostly naked performance she created a bad ass sexy character that has become an icon of horror.

This film has a real outsider quality that endears it to people who identify with the characters. It doesn’t just have a punk rock look, it has a legit soundtrack with music from The Cramps, 45 Grave, TSOL, The Damned , The Tall Boys and more. These songs are used expertly in the film. They don’t just provide background noise. Each one is used in a precise way to achieve an effect.

Return of the Living Dead spawned several sequels. Of special note is part 3 which returns the franchise to its punk roots. The zombie franchise has been run in the ground a bit over the last 20 years and many people who haven’t seen this film may wonder why they should spend time watching another entry in what is usually a very derivative genre. Return of the Living Dead is not like any other zombie film you’ll see (with the possible exception of Peter Jackson’s Braindead). This movie is sexy and gory but more than that, it’s fun! It’s completely entertaining from beginning to end. I can’t recommend the film enough.

Fun fact- Linnea’s famous nakedness was not quite as naked as we all thought. Originally she was all nude but the studio thought her bush was too obvious so she shaved it. Then the studio execs thought that the shaved bush was somehow even more taboo so a kind of fake vagina covering was made giving her sexless Barbie genitals. It’s not easily apparent and many people (including myself for about 20 years) were fooled into thinking that they had seen the promised land.

Fun fact 2- Dinah Cancer (lead singer for the band 45 Grave that provided the song Partytime for the soundtrack) starred in Fright Night 2 though you wouldn’t recognize her. She wore the monster makeup for when Regine turned into a giant bat-woman.

Fun fact 3- Jewel Shepard met Dan O’Bannon in a strip club where she was working. Jewel and Dan became friends and he offered her the role of Trash. She turned it down because she was tired of taking off her clothes all of the time and she took the role of Casey instead.

Fun fact 4- Return of the Living Dead and Friday the 13^th have a connection. Mark Venturini (Suicide) played Vic in part 5 The New Beginning. Miguel A. Núñez Jr. (Spider) played Demon in the same film (those damn enchiladas!). Thom Mathews (Freddy) had the starring role as Tommy Jarvis in part 6 Jason Lives.