Return of the Living Dead 2 (1988)

October 5, 2018

Directed by: Ken Wiederhorn

Written by: Ken Wiederhorn

Starring: James Karen, Thom Mathews, Michael Kenworthy

Budget: $6,200,000

Quote: "Look, they're ugly and they're dirty and they're dumb, and I don't even care if they are dead. I hate 'em, there's no way they're touching me!"

Trivia: Thom Mathews disliked the sequel so much that he said the best part about making the film was the outstanding craft services.




I remember this VHS box cover from the blockbuster shelves when I was a kid, but never rented it. The original Return of the Living Dead (reviewed here) is a top five favorite horror movie of all time, without a doubt! So when it finally came time to watch the sequel I was pretty excited. I can't remember the last time I was more disappointed with a movie. The movie is garbage. Like I mentioned in my last review on Halloween 5, last '80s had this weird fascination with making kids the protagonists of horror movies. I went on a long rant during that review so I'm not going to do it again here other than to say, it almost never works. In addition to that; there's a bunch of moments meant to be comical that fall flat, the zombie prosthetics are lame, and the score sounds like its from an ABC Family movie (not the soundtrack, the soundtrack is actually pretty good).

Brief overview: Military zombie barrel falls off a truck while the army driver guy is listening to rock n roll and smoking a join (alright, not a bad way to start the movie... I'm with them so far). It's found by two bullies and our dummy protagonist kid who I'm going to call Scooter. Scooter comes back to discover that a zombie gas has been unleashed and when it rains on the gas that's creeping over a cemetary, it animates the dead. Scooter along with his sister and her boyfriend (Dana Ashbrook... mother fucking Bobby Briggs from Twin Peaks!) drive around town getting into Zombie shenanigans, getting weapons until they are stopped at the outskirts of town by the military. Unable to leave, Bobby Briggs comes up with the bright idea to steal a bunch of cow brains from a meat packing plant and sets up a trap to electrocute the zombies.... oh yeah, these zombies do not react to decapitation or having their brains destroyed, it's electrocution that kills them. Dumb. Really dumb. They zap the zombies and the army comes in to save the day.

I could go on and on about some of the stupid crap in the film, such as the Michael Jackson Thriller zombie (which was improvised... smart thinking) or that a group of zombies stops attacking Bobby Briggs because they are mesmerized by Jazzercize on the TV or that a group of zombies were joy riding a car or all the dumb brain/head puns the zombies make.... but I'm going to take the high road. Here are a few cool things from the film:

• Dana Ashbrook is in this!
• The two actors who worked in the morgue in the original film are also in this one playing basically the same characters except grave robbers. They also keep making references to the other film ("I feel like we've been here before..." "This is going to get me cremated...")
• The soundtrack has Anthrax and Robert Palmer!
• The worms crawling out of the zombies faces were pretty sick.

That's all folks. Movie sucked. Convince me otherwise.

...what's your thoughts?