Return of the Living Dead

For my first foray into the blog universe I wanted to give everyone a tast of my love for the strange in movies, music, and other forms of pop culture. I will start with the inspiration for this blog title... Return of the Living Dead. Below is my defense for this moving being the best zombie movie of all time...


Return of the Living Dead - 1985 Dir. Dan O'Bannon

Ok, this might seem like an outlandish assertion, Return of the Living Dead is the greatest zombie movie ever?! Preposterous.

Isn't that the movie where the zombies yell Brains!?

Yes... that's the one.

Is it the goriest?

No.

Is it the scariest?

No.

Did it spawn the best zombie franchise?

No.

Is it the best?

Yes.

I will make my case...(If you hadn't already guessed... spoilers ahead.)


10. FAST ZOMBIES

If this were the first appearance of fast zombies it would be higher on the list, but alas.... I believe the Italians beat us to it. Nevertheless, for most of the movie-going audience this is the first time they ever considered that zombies might be able to run after them instead of just mindlessly shambling. Such a small thing ramps up the zombie-danger factor significantly. It is also the first sign of unpredictability from this movie. It's like the first time you watched a vampire movie where the cross didn't work or sunlight wasn't deadly. All of a sudden, all bets were off.


9. Punk Rockers


I was a punk-rocker in the 80's and was always annoyed by the cartoon-like portrayals of punks in movies. Ok, sure they are pretty cartoon-like here, but they are more than half the characters in the movies. And, punks are also portrayed with a bit of breadth....Freddy, the main kid, and one of our "heroes" is about the most average type of punk... the kid that had a crappy job and had crazy friends and...so on.

Also, the combination of punks being attacked by zombies, then becoming zombies...pure cinematic gold.

8. The Soundtrack

So, by adding punks to the zombie movie, naturally you could also have a great soundtrack. Surprisingly, the soundtrack is quite diverse....and....awesome!

There are three stand-out numbers.

The Cramps - Surfing Dead (an intro to the punks and a great way to kindof introduce us to the campy feel of the movie.)

45 Grave -- Great great choice. Long members of the L.A. punk scene, 45 Grave were one of the few horror punk sort of bands (Misfits being the other famous one). Partytime was a great tag-line that caught people's attentions and is almost as remembered as "brains."

Roky Erickson - Burn the Flames A truly inspired choice and my personal favorite song sequence in the movie (think crematorium). Roky came to fame in the late 60's with the band The 13th Floor Elevators (great name) but fell into schizophenia. At the time he was writing songs like Burn the Flames he was truly battling demons. Many musicians kept him from falling into total oblivion, notably Willy Nelson. Youtube clip to Roky Erickson documentary... http://youtube.com/watch?v=sVFLqzJB6qw

7. Indestructable Zombies

So here is a big change from the Romero zombie mythos. You cannot kill zombies by shooting them in the head. You cannot kill zombies by chopping them up. I remember sitting in the theater watching ROTLD for the first time...watching the yellow zombie run out of the cooler...get his head cut off and then... the wonderful scene where the headless body runs around causing havoc while the head tries to chew. As a horror fan, what an exhilerating scene from the pure imagination of it to... the implications. From that point forward I knew as a viewer that I wasn't in zombie-Kansas anymore.

The indestructable nature of ROTLD zombies is crucial in that it sets up a real problem... how do you survive? How do you beat them? How do you end the movie? (more on that later)

I think that it's interesting that few other zombie movies have adopted this feature, even though many have taken on the fast zombie thing. It really is a much bleaker zombie vision if they can't be destroyed, but much harder to deal with as a writer/director.

6. Yellow Man Zombie

Well, since I already mentioned the sequence, here is reason number 6...Yellow Man Zombie. He is important for several reasons.

A. He introduces us to the indestructable nature of ROTLD zombies as mentioned before.

B. He is one of the first zombies I can think of that acts as more of a character...unique and memorable. This movie has three, if not four, very memorable zombies...unheard of before ROTLD and nearly unheard of since (Bub from Day of the Dead, being a notable exception....terrible movie BTW).

C. We get some of the best interaction between three key human characters (Burt, Frank, and Freddy) as they try to destroy the yellow zombie. Their interactions are just well-written and hilarious....often a cross between three stooges and Abbott and Costello. Also, they set up the key working releationship that's relatable to just about anyone. You have the lowly,nobody grunt-worker (Freddy), the middle management guy who is beaten-down and weary with life(Frank), and you have the immoral boss who just wants to cover his own butt at any cost (Burt).

banter http://youtube.com/watch?v=-KWTOE0YtkY

5. Trash

What's a movie like this without a sex-object? Well, here you have a punk-rock chick, obsessed by death, obsessed by being the center of attention....who just happens to get naked... then bit.... then become a zombie! That's pretty cool b-movie stuff right there. This movie single-handedly raised Linnea Quiggley to scream-queen status. If you've seen the movie.... you're male...and heterosexual... you remember Trash.

Best naked dancing on a crypt in cinema history.

4. Tar Man

Probably the single most memorable zombie in movie history! He's cool looking, yet kinda funny looking too. He's gooey. He's one of the non-fast zombies. He growls "Brains." and thus goes down in zombie movie history. In fact the "brains" quote is one of the most universally known movie lines from a movie that most people haven't seen. It is so pervasive that most people assume that zombies are out for brains even though that is solely in the ROTLD zombie mythos. He is just a damned cool zombie... end of story!

3. Half-Woman

OK, for my money, she is the coolest zombie in this movie.... and of all time. Why?

A. She looks cool. She's only half of a corpse, rotted, wagging her spinal cord as she talks.

B. She's a puppet. She is physically present in our actual universe and not a CGI creation. I like puppets in movies.

C. She's badass. She kills one of our heroes by biting through his skull.

D. She talks... and says really important stuff (more on that later).

2. The Mythos (pardon spelling issues to follow)

Well, the reason I rate this so high is that arguably the ROTLD zombie mythos is the richest in zombie cinema. Let's count the ways.

A. Expanding on Romero. At the beginning of ROTLD Dan O'Bannon does an ingenious thing.... he dismisses, acknowledges, and expands upon Romero's zombie legacy.

Romero's zombie world is pretty thin... why do they exist? why do they eat humans, why do they die when you kill their brains?

Well, ROTLD tells us that "the movie lied" and that the zombies are all part of an army experment...etc. What a sly way to dismiss Romero's zombie world while giving a degree of believability to the ROTLD world. Of course the discussion doesn't end there... we learn about the canisters holding the zombies and we learn about the government agency that is trying to track all the canisters down, we learn about the gas that creates the zombies...etc.

B. Brains

ROTLD tells us that that zombies are not just mindless cannibals... they are actually after our brains... because eating brains helps ease the pain of being dead... of feeling one's body rot away. Remember we find all this out from the rotting lips of half-woman zombie herself. Now that is a great moment in horror history right there.

1. The End (spoilers... duh)

This will probably be my most controversial point, because the end of ROTLD is one of the most love-it or hate-it aspects of the movie. Many feel it is a cop-out... a sort of Deux Et Machina (sp?). I disagree... it is the perfect ending... maybe the most perfect ending a zombie movie could ever have.

First of all, as I said previously, there should never have been any sequels to ROTLD. Sure, you can follow other canisters and other zombie outbreaks, but really that goes against the ending of the first movie.

The ending... zombies are taking over the area surrounding the cemetery...medical warehouse... and our heroes decide to finally call the number on the side of the canister. What a great feature... once again illustrating the high level of writing in this movie. Is it not totally like the army to put an emergency on the side of ZOMBIE CANISTERS!!? So funny and so true.

So, the call goes through and the contingency plan.... waiting like the silos of the cold-war.... finally goes into action. Giant nuclear cannon..... destroy everything. So that seems sudden and a bit of a let-down. But then we have one last scene... the repetition of rising gas/mist... rain...into the ground.... into a cemetary... So, of course, the implications are that the fallout from the blast has both...not ended the zombie threat... but SPREAD IT! Apocalyptic.... un-killable zombies... nuclear-zombie-creating-fallout.... cool... perfect...end of the world.

No happy ending. No end to zombies. Zombies Win. Game Over Man!