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Return of the Living Dead (1985)
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Favorite movie quote from: Return of the Living Dead
(after getting doused with 245-Trioxin)
Frank: You better watch your tongue if you like this job, boy!
Freddy: LIKE THIS JOB?!
Return of the Living Dead is quite simply one of the finest examples of horror filmmaking in film history. That may seem like a grandiose statement, but I don't care. It's true. Deal with it.
Freddy gets a job at the Uneeda Medical Supply warehouse, owned by Burt (played by the always irascible Clu Gulager). He is being trained by Frank (James Karen, who has been in everything, but will always be the Pathmark guy to me), who is kind of a putz. He spins a yarn about how the events of the Romero film NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD were based on a real incident, that of the chemical 245-Trioxin causing corpses to jump and jitter with a verisimilitude of life. He then takes him downstairs to show him an actual canister containing one of the corpses in question. When Freddy asks how they came to have a canister, Frank intones, "Typical army f*ck up."
See why I love this movie?
So they go downstairs, and Frank bangs against the side of the canister, because, like I said, he's a putz. The thing springs a leak, and everything in the warehouse gets doused. From the split-dogs to butterflies pinned to a board to a cadaver in a freezer, all things dead come to life in a very inventive and disturbing scene.
Enter Burt to try to pick up the piece and save his business. With the help of his inept employees, he cuts the cadaver into pieces, and enlists the help of his mortician friend Ernie (Burt and Ernie - see why I love this movie?) to cremate the pieces.
Which turns out to be the worst thing they ever could have done.
Meanwhile, Freddy's punker and junker friends have been partying in a cemetery while waiting for him to get out of work, and they get caught in the deadly ensuing zombie rain, and have to seek cover.
From that point on, the film gets exponentially worse for all parties. The more people try to rectify the situation, or even to save their own asses, the worse of a mess they make the whole scenario. And when they finally get the army involved, Frank's earlier notation on their method of handling a situation proves all too prophetic.
It is a brilliantly ever-devolving course of events, and Dan O'Bannon, screenwriter and director and all around crotchety old coot, must be given much credit for his unwavering vision of an undead holocaust. It is done with humor and reverence for its source material and irreverence for everything else, and hits every mark and pushes every button dead-solid-perfect. I hate to gush (no I don't) but this movie is in the same pantheon of perfection as REPO-MAN and SHAUN OF THE DEAD. Yes, it's that good.
See it for Tarman (the greatest zombie since Bub).
See it for Linnea Quigley (take a good look at her "privacy patch")
See it for the great punk soundtrack.
See it for all that it is that other zombie films are not.
Just see it.
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 | Bobby B
Feb 26, 2008 5:56 PM
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| I saw this movie, yo, when it first came out. I reviewed it for the school newspaper. This one and Rocky f*cking IV. I blasted Rocky and loved this movie and a lifelong pattern was set. I became friends with all the punk kids cuz I dug the soundtrack. "I love you and I want to eat your braaaaaiiiinnnn..." is one of my all time favorite lines in movies. A classic. |
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Feb 26, 2008 6:02 PM