I can feel myself rotting. Brains..it makes the pain go away! it wheezes. Exactly why no one has decided to capitalize on this idea in today’s undead cinematic climate is anybody’s guess, but O’Bannon’s comedic alternative to George Romero’s original nightmare, Night of the Living Dead, offers snappy ideas by the bucket load whilst throwing an irresistible mix of death-rock and punk rock-horror bands that tore up the eighties like The Damned and The Cramps, eschewing the overwhelming apocalyptic grip of dread that Night is renowned for.
It all often comes across as what the gag reel from John Landis’ Thriller music video could have looked like which will explain why they had a zombie suit up in a full Jackson Thriller replica outfit for the sequel, Return of the Living Dead Part 2! O’Bannon’s film, just like it’s decaying stars, is out for pure laughs, sex, drugs and rock’n roll with a little brains to boot. Many years on we now have four sequels – arguably questionable in quality – and now a Blu-ray debut.
Where Romero’s zombies were the result of mysterious space debris in the farm fields of sixties America, here the undead are the unfortunate result of an accident at a US military medical research centre where a mysterious toxic gas is spilled and seeps out into the town graveyards bringing the dead back from the grave, ready to party.
The inhabitants, including a gang of street punks with colourful names such as Trash (Linnea Quigley), Scuz (Brian Peck) and Suicide (Mark Venturini) are forced into a night long fight for their lives and brains.
The Return of the Living Dead is often overlooked for Romero’s films partially due to their strong emphasis on laughs not eaxctly the type of horror audiences had come to expect having been used to Romero’s brand of terror. but any self respecting zombie afaciando should see this one if they havent already and with such a generous helping of extras and behind the scenes tidbits. Why not?
This package includes a making-of featurette, a look back at the pre-production and a dissection of the film’s future success in the featurettes on the sequels – Return of the Living Dead Part 2, Love Beyond the Grave: A look at Return of The Living Dead 3 – and Resurrected Settings, where cast members pay a visit to former filming locations in Los Angeles and scenes from the two documentaries saved from the cutting room floor.
Some great supplementary material here that is more than enough reason to revisit this one, on a format that perfectly compliments the ghoulish glow of the deliciously gothic set design. Those of you true completists will probably already have Bill Philputt’s excellent More Brains! A Return To The Living Dead retrospective documentary on DVD, making all these extras particularly old news but should not be deterred from shelling out those few extra bucks to upgrade this definitive package.
