Imagine, if you will, that the year is 1988 and that you’re a huge fan of the original Return of the Living Dead. You’ve been patiently waiting for months for the sequel to finally be released on home video because it didn’t play in any of the local theaters. You’ve been reading about the making of the film in magazines. You’ve been counting down the days to when you get to see it. Finally, it comes out and you get your mom to drive you to the video store. You rent the tape, excitedly take it home and then pop that thing in the VCR quick as you can, and… err… uh… um… what the hell is this?
Quick Recap! When COVID shut down everything in early 2020, I started an online bad movie night get-together with some friends that we eventually dubbed “Bad Movie Monday”. The premise was simple: We’d torture each other every Monday with the worst trash we could find, tell a few jokes, cheer each other up, and in the process maybe discover some weird obscure cinema that we might never have seen any other way. This series of reviews will feature highlights of those night, along with some other trash that I love, so you can all share in the fun and maybe get some ideas for your own movie night.
In a lot of ways this movie was ahead of its time. Because it’s not really a sequel and it’s not really a remake. It’s more of an early and very clumsy attempt at what would later be called a reboot. Which begs the question. WHY??? There was nothing wrong with Dan O’Bannon’s movie and it made a nice little profit, so why not make a direct sequel to that one? There’s tons of directions they could have taken a proper continuation in. It’s not like they didn’t already have the rights to use O’Bannon’s ideas because they almost certainly did, a bunch of elements of Part 1 ended up in Part 2: The Tarman, Colonel Glover, the Trioxin barrels, the two bumbling characters played by James Karen and Thom Mathews. However, it quickly becomes obvious this film was never meant to be an actual sequel when you begin to notice that all of these ideas were just awkwardly shoved into the story, only to then often disappear without a trace. In fact, writer and Director Ken Wiederhorn has gone on record to pretty much say that this started out as an original zombie movie and was never intended as a sequel to anything.
SO WHAT’S THE STORY JEREMY?
The movie opens on a military convoy transporting the same kind of zombie canisters we saw in the first film and, of course, they lose a few while going over a bridge. The next day, a trio of dumb little kids playing around in the cemetery find one of the canisters. The dumbest one of the bunch, Billy (Thor Van Lingen), wants to open it because he think there must be jewels or guns inside. While the smartest one, Jesse (Michael Kenworthy), wants to call the emergency number on the side but is locked into the mausoleum by the other two imbeciles. As that’s happening we get our obligatory cameos from James Karen and Thom Mathews, this time playing two grave robbers called Ed and Joey, along with the welcome addition of Suzanne Snyder as Brenda. Jesse manages to get back home, where he is chewed out by his sister Lucy (Marsha Dietlein) and told to go do his homework. Meanwhile, Billy and the other kid genius finally manage to open the canister, releasing the zombie gas all over the cemetery and causing a huge rainstorm.
Watching this again after so many years, I just noticed something. The suburban neighborhood where Jesse lives is under construction, only a handful of houses seem to be finished, and the cemetery is right next to it. So I’m getting the feeling that in a very early draft of the screenplay, when this movie wasn’t connected to Return of the Living Dead, the reason that the dead came back to life was that the developers were building on top of the cemetery like in Poltergeist. In fact, now that I think about it, a lot of James Karen’s dialogue sounds like something you might have given a parody of the sleazy realtor that he played in Poltergeist. Keep in mind, I’m just thinking out loud here. I’m probably wrong, but wouldn’t THAT have been a trippy movie?
It’s also around here that we get another obligatory cameo. Jonathan Terry playing Colonel Glover, the exact same character he played in the original film. So this movie is all over the damn place. Sometimes it’s a reboot, sometimes a sequel, and it can’t quite figure out which one it wants to be.
Back at Jesse’s house, a cable TV repairman Tom (Dana Ashbrook) arrives, distracting Lucy and allowing Jesse to sneak out to go see if Billy is alright. Billy, who has managed to stumble back home, is not alright. Nobody knows how badly “sick” he is yet, but it worries Jesse enough so that he goes back to the canister to write down the number on its side in case he needs it. It’s at this point Jesse sees that the Tarman from the first movie has escaped and is on the hunt for brains. Jesse is able to get away but realizes that the entire cemetery has been resurrected and that all the zombies are now climbing out of their graves. Brenda, Ed and Joey also encounter the zombies and run for their lives.
Jesse makes it back home, where his vocabulary skills seem to have taken a leave. Hey kid, here’s a pro tip: Yelling “BIG! SLIMY! AEUGHH!!!” is not going to convince anyone, eh? His sister, somewhat understandably, locks him in his room. Meanwhile, Ed, Joey and Brenda end up at Jesse’s house where they steal Tom’s van, but only manage to get a short distance away before they crash into a zombie and then a telephone junction box. Jesse who had just escaped his room and tried to call the number he jotted down gets cut off before he can tell the Army what happened.
The whole group: Brenda, Ed and Joey, and Lucy and Jesse and Tom, then all go to a nearby Doctor’s house. Doddering old Doc Mandel, played by veteran actor Phil Bruns, whose character really helps make the second half of the movie work, thank God. Doc owns an old Cadillac that Tom uses to take a sickening Ed and Joey to the hospital, where Doc examines the two men and diagnoses them with a fatal case of being very very dead. Meanwhile, Tom, Lucy and Jesse go out looking for some guns at their grandfather’s place. Back at the hospital Doc Mandel suggests perhaps “containing” Ed and Joey, but Brenda refuses and steals Doc’s car to go find help with Ed and Joey in tow.
One thing I’d like to mention since we’re at the one hour point is that NOTHING in this movie even reminds me of the original. Not the editing, not the cinematography, not the title fonts, not the acting, not the music, not the special effects. NOTHING. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think this is bad in and of itself, I just feel it’s a strange choice. The eighties were sequel-crazy except for this one specific franchise.
The one hour point is also when the movie completely runs out of steam. The characters of Brenda, Ed and Joey might have been amusing at first but by now all they’ve been doing for the last fifteen minutes is screaming. In fact, I may be crazy here but I think they dubbed in some of James Karen and Thom Mathews’ screams from the first movie to “sweeten” the audio. Thankfully, they all pretty much exit the film after Brenda steals the car. She happens upon some soldiers, who are attacked by Ed, and then she runs away to hide in a church where she lets Joey eat her brains. Weirdly, she seems to dig it. Kinky! After that, we never see any of them again.
While that’s happening Tom, Lucy, Jesse and the Doc have taken one of the ambulances at the hospital and discover by accident that electricity can kill the zombies. So they devise a plan to lure all the zombies to the power station using beef brains. The plan works well, in that the zombies follow them to the plant and everything is set up to electrocute them, but all three are cornered and trapped in the back of the truck by a horde of zombies. Tom help Jesse, the only one small enough to wriggle out of a tiny hatch and into the cab, in order to drive the truck to the plant and save the day. Once there, Jesse is attacked by zombie Billy, but manages to set off the trap and kill all the zombies including Billy. THE END.
THOUGHTS
#1 – James Karen and Thom Mathews still have a lot of great comedic chemistry together despite the fact that their roles are severely underwritten.
#2 – This movie is like if R.L. Stine wrote Night of the Living Dead.
#3 – Phil Bruns is legitimately funny in this movie. He’s the best part of the whole thing by far. He doesn’t even have that many funny lines, he’s just funny all by himself.
#4 – One of the best lines in the movie is when Graverobber Ed (James Karen) prays to God and goes “They’re dead! I thought you were finished with them!”
#5 – Another example of how little thought was given to jamming as many references to Return of the Living Dead into this story: When the kids open the canister, the escaping gas makes a torrential rain fall down, which is what resurrect the dead people in the cemetery. However, within a few scenes this is totally forgotten and it never rains again.
#6 – The movie’s tone is an odd one. On the one hand it wants to be like a kid’s movie, but then it goes and actually kills a kid. I mean, yeah he’s a bully, but still.
#7 – Cinematographer Robert Elswit went on to work with Paul Thomas Anderson and won an Oscar for There Will Be Blood. So, if nothing else, this movie looks good. Doesn’t have that rough and rowdy punk rock look of the first film, but it’s very stylish in its own right. Looks like a late eighties comedy about high school seniors trying to get laid during a skiing competition.
#8 – You could make a drinking game out of this. Every time a character repeats a line or some elements from the first film, take a sip. You’ll be mildly tipsy by the end of the film.
#9 – I still don’t understand why electricity would kill the dead. I mean, yeah being resurrected because of gas and acid rain doesn’t make much sense either, but… Eh… I’m overthinking this.
#10 – There are so many scenes that don’t go anywhere that it makes you wonder if a lot of this movie wasn’t just improvised on the spot.
WAS IT ACTUALLY BAD?
Naw, it’s not bad. I’d even say that it’s the perfect film to introduce one of your younger teen children to horror movies with. It’s not too intense but also not too soft, kind of like The Monster Squad with zombies and a bit more gore. It’s also a lot of fun if you’re not expecting a proper sequel to Return of the Living Dead. The first hour is fairly well paced and there’s a lot of fun stuff happening. The last thirty minutes is when the film starts to hopelessly meander, but even then it’s not that bad. It still keeps your attention and interest until the ending. I didn’t like this film when it came out, but it’s grown on me over the years. If you can find a copy, check it out. You won’t be bored, I can promise you at least that.
