THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD

US, 1985, 91 minutes, Colour.
Clu Gulager.
Directed by Dan O'Bannon.

The Return of the Living Dead is an over the top horror movie. It was written and directed by Dan O'Bannon (Dark Star, Alien, Blue Thunder, Life Force). While he has a knowledge and love for cinema conventions, this one is highly exploitative and is too much.

The film has reference to George Romero's classic The Night of the Living Dead and offers the hypothesis that this was a film which portrayed real events but altered the facts. The gases used to destroy the living dead were stored in Louisville, Kentucky, and are in the basement of a warehouse specialising in corpses, skeletons and medical aids. The film starts as a tall story, with the telling of tall stories - but eventually the chemicals are released, people are transformed into living dead and as bodies are burnt the ashes go into the air, combine, come down to bring to life the corpses in the cemetery.

There is a spree of activity by the living dead pursuing the living to get their brains. Characters go berserk, are murdered in gory fashion. The military is called in with rockets to destroy the situation – but, of course, with the further burning, it is inevitable that there will be more living dead. The cast is directed to perform at screech level - which is quite trying. The youngsters are punk and unsympathetic, exhibitionists. There is rock and roll music in the background which, of course, detracts from any seriousness.

The film seems to be aiming at spoof as well as becoming a kind of cult movie. While there are touches of the clever, it is too gruesome and too exaggerated. It doesn't have the style or class to make it a classic of its kind (as hoped for).