The Return of the Living Dead (1985) Review — Thalia’s Spook-n-Boobtacular Day 13
Directed by: Dan O’Bannon
Starring: Clu Gulager, James Karen, Thom Mathews, Don Calfa, Linnea Quigley, Beverly Randolph, Miguel A. Núñez Jr., Mark Venturini, Jewel Shepard, Brian Peck, and John Philbin
Runtime: 91 minutes
OH, MY BEAUTIFUL DEGENERATES!
WE FUCKING MADE IT!
Thirteen days! Thirteen movies! Thirteen glorious evenings of murder, mayhem, questionable acting, beautiful women, ridiculous special effects, and some of the most magnificently stupid shit ever committed to film!
It’s Halloween; our countdown concludes. This is the Day 13 finale of Thalia’s Spook-n-Boobtacular!
We’ve endured the Buttered Lens of Spring Break Massacre, survived the vampire nunnery masquerading as a bordello, watched Jeffrey Franken construct a woman out of spare parts, and discovered that David DeCoteau has apparently spent the last decade directing every wrong fucking thing imaginable.
We’ve laughed. We’ve cried. We’ve demanded that cameramen learn how to focus their fucking equipment.
And, of course, we witnessed the Sacred Bathtub.
Ahhh, the Sacred Bathtub.
Thalia pauses to take a loving sip of wine.
And let’s not forget Lana Clarkson’s magnificent contribution to the early festivities with her breathtaking waterfall scenery!
But tonight, my beautiful degenerates, we’re ending our little celebration with something truly special.
A genuine eighties horror classic.
A movie with actual scares, actual laughs, actual personality, and one of the greatest collections of ridiculous characters ever assembled for a zombie film.
Directed by Dan O’Bannon, The Return of the Living Dead arrived in 1985 and promptly introduced audiences to a world in which zombies could run, talk, think, and absolutely refuse to stay fucking dead.
And who’s joining us for the grand finale?
Oh, darling.
You know who’s joining us.
LINNEA FUCKING QUIGLEY!
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
At this point, I think we’ve reviewed enough of Linnea’s filmography to qualify as her unofficial public relations department.
And if there’s one thing I’ve learned over these thirteen days, it’s that a movie featuring Linnea Quigley is already off to a very promising start.
So pour yourself something delicious, settle into your favorite chair, and prepare for a Halloween finale featuring toxic chemicals, punk rockers, indestructible zombies, and a collection of people who are about to have the worst fucking night of their lives.
LET’S RAISE THE DEAD, DARLINGS!
Uneeda Medical Supply — You Need It, We Got It!
Our movie opens on July 3, 1984, in Louisville, Kentucky, where a young fellow named Freddy, played by Thom Mathews, has started working at Uneeda Medical Supply.
His supervisor, Frank, played by the wonderful James Karen, is giving him a tour of the warehouse.
And I immediately like Frank.
He’s friendly, talkative, full of amusing little stories, and exactly the sort of older employee who seems perfectly happy to share everything he knows about the business.
Unfortunately, what Frank knows includes something about an old military accident involving dead bodies, a mysterious chemical, and the supposedly true events behind Night of the Living Dead.
According to Frank, the government developed a chemical called 2-4-5 Trioxin, and a rather unfortunate accident caused some corpses to return to life.
The Army covered everything up, of course, but several containers of contaminated bodies were accidentally delivered to the warehouse.
Now, my beautiful degenerates, I have a question.
WHY THE FUCK IS THE UNITED STATES ARMY SHIPPING ZOMBIES TO A MEDICAL SUPPLY WAREHOUSE?!
And an even better question:
WHY THE FUCK DID NOBODY SEND THEM BACK?!
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Oh, but Frank isn’t finished.
He takes Freddy into the basement to show him the mysterious military drums.
And then he decides to demonstrate just how secure they are.
By hitting one.
FRANK! DARLING! DON’T HIT THE FUCKING ZOMBIE BARREL!
Naturally, the container cracks and releases a cloud of toxic gas directly into their faces.
Both men collapse.
The corpse inside the container begins dissolving.
And somewhere in the Halls, a certain wine-drinking Greek goddess begins laughing herself sick.
THAT’S IT! WE’VE KILLED EVERYBODY!
Ten minutes into the movie and the entire zombie apocalypse has been unleashed because one man wanted to show off how durable a military container was!
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Oh, Dan O’Bannon, darling.
I already love your fucking movie.
How Do You Kill Something That’s Already Dead?!
When Frank and Freddy awaken, something has gone terribly wrong.
The medical specimens are moving.
Preserved butterflies flutter around. A dissected dog displays a rather alarming interest in living again. And a cadaver locked inside the warehouse freezer begins making enough noise to suggest that somebody has forgotten to explain the concept of death.
The two men call their boss, Burt Wilson, played by Clu Gulager.
And, my beautiful degenerates, this is where the movie starts demonstrating just how fucking good its cast really is.
James Karen is wonderful as the increasingly panicked Frank, Thom Mathews makes Freddy a sympathetic young man caught in an impossible situation, and Clu Gulager gives Burt exactly the right combination of authority, desperation, and completely misplaced confidence.
They’re not heroic action stars.
They’re three ordinary men trying to deal with a problem that is absolutely, spectacularly beyond their qualifications.
And when they finally get the reanimated cadaver out of the freezer, they do what any sensible person familiar with zombie movies would do.
They attempt to destroy its brain.
Well, that ought to settle things.
Except it fucking doesn’t.
They drive a pickaxe into the creature’s head.
It keeps moving.
They remove its head.
It keeps moving.
They cut the body into pieces.
THE FUCKING PIECES KEEP MOVING!
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
OH, MY BEAUTIFUL DEGENERATES!
THEY’VE CREATED AN ENTIRE COLLECTION OF ANGRY FUCKING BODY PARTS!
And this is one of the movie’s greatest ideas.
Forget everything you think you know about zombies. Destroying the brain doesn’t work. Dismembering them doesn’t work. These horrible little bastards are going to keep coming until somebody finds another solution.
So Burt decides to take the remains to his friend Ernie, played by Don Calfa, who operates the neighboring funeral home.
The plan?
Burn everything.
Of course!
WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO FUCKING WRONG?!
LINNEA FUCKING QUIGLEY — PATRON SAINT OF THE CEMETERY!
Meanwhile, we’ve been introduced to Freddy’s girlfriend Tina and a wonderful collection of young punk rockers waiting for him to finish work.
Spider, Suicide, Casey, Scuz, Chuck, and, most importantly…
Trash.
Played by…
LINNEA FUCKING QUIGLEY!
OH, MY BEAUTIFUL DEGENERATES!
LOOK WHO’S HERE!
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
DARLING, AT THIS POINT YOU SHOULD HAVE YOUR OWN FUCKING RESERVED CHAIR IN THE HALLS!
We’ve celebrated Linnea’s performances throughout this festival. We’ve seen her in Night of the Demons, Nightmare Sisters, Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, and Dr. Alien. We’ve even suffered through a movie that put her name on the DVD cover and then barely bothered to use her.
But tonight?
OH, TONIGHT THEY REMEMBERED TO GIVE LINNEA SOMETHING TO FUCKING DO!
Our punk-rock friends have decided to spend their evening waiting around a cemetery, because apparently sitting among dead people is a perfectly reasonable recreational activity.
And then Trash begins discussing her rather unusual fascination with death.
She’s an outrageous little creature, isn’t she?
And suddenly, she decides that the cemetery would be the perfect place for an impromptu dance performance.
Off come the clothes.
On comes the music.
And Linnea Quigley proceeds to deliver one of the most famous scenes in the history of eighties horror cinema.
OH! OH, MY FUCKING OLYMPUS!
LINNEA! DARLING! YOU MAGNIFICENT WOMAN!
A MAGNIFICENT WOMAN WITH A MAGNIFICENT SET OF TWINS!
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
I’ve seen enough of this wonderful woman’s majestic tits that I could pick them out of a lineup. Perhaps even blindfolded! JUST FUCKING LOOK AT THEM AS OUR DARLING DANCES NAKED IN THE FUCKING CEMETERY!
After thirteen days of questionable cinema, I genuinely cannot imagine a more appropriate sight for our grand finale than Linnea Quigley dancing on a tombstone while punk rock music fills the cemetery.
And do you know what I appreciate most?
The scene has personality!
YES, MY DEGENERATES, IT’S NOT JUST THE FUCKING TITS!
Although, darling, let’s not pretend they aren’t making a rather substantial contribution!
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
But seriously, look at the whole fucking presentation! The cemetery! The tombstones! The wonderful punk-rock soundtrack! And Linnea dancing away as though performing naked in a graveyard is the most perfectly normal thing in the world!
THIS IS HOW YOU MAKE A FUCKING SCENE MEMORABLE!
Dan O’Bannon isn’t simply pointing a camera at a beautiful woman and hoping that’s enough to entertain us. He’s giving us atmosphere, music, personality, and a wonderfully outrageous character who belongs in precisely this kind of ridiculous movie.
And most importantly?
HE LETS THE FUCKING SCENE BREATHE!
DAVID DeCOTEAU! DARLING! I HOPE YOU’RE TAKING FUCKING NOTES!
Because after thirteen days of this nonsense, I’ve learned something very important.
A beautiful pair of twins can certainly get my attention.
BUT A FILMMAKER WHO KNOWS WHAT THE FUCK HE’S DOING CAN KEEP IT!
TARMAN! YOU BEAUTIFUL, DISGUSTING BASTARD!
Back at the warehouse, Tina goes looking for Freddy and encounters something that makes Wesley Littlejohn’s alien head worm look positively adorable.
The creature from the military barrel has returned.
And, my beautiful degenerates, it is fucking magnificent.
TARMAN!
OH, LOOK AT THIS BEAUTIFUL, ROTTING MONSTROSITY!
A slimy, skeletal, blackened corpse with enormous eyes, a grotesque grin, and an overwhelming desire to acquire somebody’s brains!
This is what practical horror effects are supposed to look like.
The creature is hideous, memorable, and genuinely unsettling. It moves with an awful, unnatural quality that makes it look like something dragged out of the worst possible nightmare.
And when it starts demanding brains?
Oh, darling.
That’s movie magic.
BRAAAAAAINS!
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
I can already hear Titan from the other end of the Halls.
“THALIA! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU WATCHING?!”
“ART, DARLING! I’M WATCHING FUCKING ART!”
And that’s one of the wonderful things about this movie.
The creatures don’t all look alike.
We’ve got decomposing skeletons, grotesque half-rotted corpses, shambling monsters, and bodies that have been dead for considerably longer than anybody should be comfortable thinking about.
They’re ugly, frightening, and often hilarious.
But they’re never boring.
And after Spring Break Massacre, darling, you have no idea how much I appreciate that.
SEND MORE FUCKING PARAMEDICS!
Remember Burt’s brilliant idea about burning the zombie remains?
Well, my beautiful degenerates, that may have been the single worst decision anybody has made since Frank decided to hit the fucking barrel.
Ernie cremates the reanimated body parts, sending contaminated smoke into the atmosphere.
The smoke mixes with the rain.
The rain falls over the cemetery.
And before you know it…
THE FUCKING DEAD ARE COMING OUT OF THE GROUND!
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
OH, THIS IS WONDERFUL!
We’ve got zombies climbing out of their graves, punk rockers running for their lives, and our beautiful Trash suddenly discovering that her fascination with death has become a little more personal than she anticipated.
And here the film does something rather clever.
It lets the comedy coexist with some genuinely unpleasant horror.
The situation becomes increasingly desperate. People die. The creatures attack with frightening speed, and our survivors discover that absolutely none of the usual zombie-fighting methods are going to save them.
Even the emergency services aren’t safe.
Paramedics arrive to help.
The zombies attack them.
And one of the undead decides to use the ambulance radio to request additional assistance.
“SEND MORE PARAMEDICS.”
…
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
OH, YOU MAGNIFICENT FUCKING BASTARDS!
THE ZOMBIES ARE ORDERING TAKEOUT!
I’M FUCKING DYING!
And then they start calling for more police officers, too!
DARLING, THESE CREATURES HAVE FIGURED OUT HOW TO OPERATE A DELIVERY SERVICE!
WHY CHASE YOUR DINNER WHEN YOU CAN HAVE IT BROUGHT DIRECTLY TO THE FUCKING CEMETERY?!
This is glorious horror comedy.
It’s funny because it’s horrible, and it’s horrible because the monsters are smart enough to exploit the very people trying to help.
And underneath the ridiculousness, there’s a frightening thought.
These zombies aren’t mindless.
They’re thinking.
They’re communicating.
And they’re hungry.
The Poor Bastards Are Already Dead
As the epidemic spreads, Frank and Freddy begin experiencing the consequences of their exposure to Trioxin.
They become terribly ill.
Their bodies grow cold.
Their condition deteriorates.
And then the paramedics discover something that changes everything.
THEY DON’T HAVE FUCKING HEARTBEATS!
Oh, darling.
That’s not good.
Not good at all.
The horrible truth is that Frank and Freddy aren’t simply sick.
They’re dying.
Or, depending on how you look at it, they’re already dead and haven’t quite realized it yet.
And while The Return of the Living Dead is frequently hilarious, these scenes reveal that Dan O’Bannon knows when to let the horror take over.
James Karen is especially wonderful.
Frank’s growing terror, his confusion, and eventually his understanding of what has happened to him give the movie an unexpected emotional weight.
He isn’t a monster who wants to hurt anybody.
He’s a frightened man who made a stupid mistake and now finds himself facing something unimaginably horrible.
And when he finally understands that he’s becoming one of the creatures, he makes a terrible decision.
He enters the crematory and burns himself rather than lose control.
Oh, Frank.
Darling.
That’s genuinely awful.
And suddenly, the movie that had me laughing about zombie takeout services has reminded me that its characters are actual people caught in a nightmare.
That’s good horror filmmaking.
You make us laugh.
You make us care.
And then you make us wish things had turned out differently.
Freddy’s transformation is equally disturbing, especially because Tina refuses to abandon him.
He loves her.
But the infection is changing him.
And eventually, love becomes something far less powerful than the terrible hunger taking over his body.
BRAINS!
DARLING!
THAT’S YOUR GIRLFRIEND!
YOU CAN’T JUST FUCKING EAT HER!
Although, considering the events of this movie, I’m beginning to suspect that traditional relationship counseling isn’t going to accomplish very much.
The Living Dead Have Better Personalities Than Most Movie Characters
My beautiful degenerates, can we take a moment to appreciate just how entertaining this entire cast is?
Clu Gulager’s Burt spends the movie making increasingly desperate decisions with the confidence of a man who desperately wants to believe he’s still in charge.
James Karen gives us a wonderfully funny and ultimately tragic performance as Frank.
Thom Mathews manages to make Freddy both sympathetic and frightening.
Don Calfa’s Ernie is a marvelous addition, providing an exhausted, practical presence while the world collapses around him.
And our punk-rock ensemble gives the movie a colorful identity that separates it from so many other zombie films.
Beverly Randolph makes Tina a genuinely sympathetic character. Miguel A. Núñez Jr. brings charisma to Spider, and the rest of the group provides a delightful mixture of attitudes, fashion choices, and spectacularly questionable decisions.
And Linnea?
Oh, Linnea, darling.
We’ve already established your qualifications.
But I love that Trash eventually returns as one of the undead herself, bringing her peculiar relationship with death to its wonderfully twisted conclusion.
She begins the movie fascinated by the idea of dying in a horrible manner.
By the end, she’s become part of the fucking problem!
DARLING, THAT’S WHAT I CALL COMMITTING TO A ROLE!
And let’s not forget the soundtrack!
The punk rock music fits this movie beautifully, giving it an identity that feels distinctly rooted in the mid-eighties while helping the entire production move along with tremendous energy.
The film is packed with memorable images, marvelous special effects, and dialogue that people are still quoting decades later.
You know what that means, my beautiful degenerates?
THIS MOVIE HAS FUCKING PERSONALITY!
And after thirteen days of discussing the difference between good bad movies and genuinely bad movies, I think that’s one of the most important lessons we’ve learned.
A movie doesn’t need a giant budget.
It doesn’t need famous Hollywood superstars.
It doesn’t even need to make a particularly large amount of sense.
But it does need to entertain.
And Dan O’Bannon understands that beautifully.
The Government Is Here to Help!
By the final act, things have become a complete fucking catastrophe.
The cemetery is overrun.
The funeral home is surrounded.
The police can’t control the situation.
The military is becoming increasingly concerned.
And our surviving characters have discovered that absolutely nothing they’ve attempted has improved matters.
So Burt finally contacts the military using the number on the contaminated barrels.
And somebody answers.
Wonderful!
At last!
Competent assistance!
Surely the United States Army has a well-considered plan for dealing with an outbreak of reanimated corpses.
And, technically speaking, it does.
THEY’RE GOING TO BLOW THE WHOLE FUCKING PLACE UP!
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
OH, MY BEAUTIFUL DEGENERATES!
THE GOVERNMENT HAS DECIDED THE SOLUTION TO A ZOMBIE OUTBREAK IS TO FUCKING NUKE LOUISVILLE!
Well, that’s certainly one way to deal with a customer complaint!
The military authorizes a nuclear artillery strike, and the entire area is destroyed.
The warehouse.
The cemetery.
The funeral home.
The zombies.
Our surviving characters.
EVERY FUCKING BODY!
And the military considers the operation a success.
Oh, isn’t that lovely?
Just a little localized nuclear incident.
Nothing to worry about!
The dead are gone!
The situation is contained!
Everybody can return to their normal lives!
Except…
The contaminated material is still entering the atmosphere.
And the rain begins falling again.
Oh, darling.
YOU MAGNIFICENT FUCKING IDIOTS!
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
YOU’VE JUST MADE THE PROBLEM BIGGER!
And that’s where Dan O’Bannon leaves us.
With the awful realization that humanity may have just made its own extinction considerably more likely.
What a wonderful fucking ending!
Thalia’s Final Decree — The Dead Have Won!
My beautiful degenerates, after thirteen days of watching some of the strangest, sleaziest, funniest, and occasionally most dreadful movies imaginable, I honestly couldn’t have asked for a better grand finale.
The Return of the Living Dead is a magnificent horror comedy.
It’s funny, disgusting, frightening, energetic, and full of wonderful characters. Dan O’Bannon understands the genre well enough to play with its conventions while introducing ideas that make his zombies genuinely terrifying.
Destroying their brains doesn’t work.
Cutting them apart doesn’t work.
Even burning them can make the situation worse!
And the fact that these monsters can speak, reason, and deliberately lure more victims into danger gives the movie a wonderfully nasty personality.
The practical effects are terrific. Tarman is one of the most memorable zombie creations I’ve encountered, and the graveyard sequences have exactly the sort of spooky atmosphere we’ve occasionally been missing during this festival.
James Karen, Clu Gulager, Thom Mathews, and Don Calfa are all wonderful. The punk-rock characters are entertaining, the soundtrack is fantastic, and the whole production feels like a group of filmmakers who knew exactly what sort of ridiculous movie they wanted to make.
And, of course…
Linnea Quigley.
Oh, my beautiful Linnea.
Darling, after everything we’ve watched together over the last thirteen days, I can only say one thing.
THANK YOU FOR MAKING HORROR SO MUCH FUCKING FUN!
You helped make this festival something special.
And after tonight, I think your statue in the Halls is no longer merely a suggestion.
It’s a fucking necessity.
Now, let’s get to those final ratings!
HORROR: ★★★★☆ — 4/5
OH, WE FINALLY HAVE SOME FUCKING HORROR!
Genuinely grotesque zombies, wonderfully creepy practical effects, an unforgettable monster in Tarman, and an increasingly hopeless situation that becomes more disturbing as the film progresses.
I’m withholding one star because the movie is deliberately comedic and never allows the horror to dominate completely.
But make no mistake, darling. These are some nasty fucking zombies!
CHEESE: ★★★★★ — 5/5
ABSOLUTELY FUCKING MAGNIFICENT!
We’ve got punk rockers partying in a cemetery, government chemicals, indestructible corpses, dismembered body parts, talking zombies, and emergency responders being summoned like fucking food delivery!
The acting is wonderfully expressive, the dialogue is memorable, and the entire movie embraces its ridiculousness without becoming a lazy parody.
THIS, MY BEAUTIFUL DEGENERATES, IS HOW YOU MAKE A FUCKING B-MOVIE!
BOOBS: ★★★★★ — 5/5
LINNEA FUCKING QUIGLEY!
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Darling, do I really need to explain this one?!
After movies that kept their actresses hidden behind red lighting, blurred photography, or mysteriously modest costumes, Dan O’Bannon gives Linnea an unforgettable cemetery performance that has become one of the defining images of eighties horror.
And unlike some of our previous cinematic disappointments, the scene is given room to breathe.
The character, the music, the setting, and the sheer outrageousness of the whole production make it memorable.
FIVE FUCKING STARS!
And, David DeCoteau, darling, I hope you’re paying attention.
OH, MY BEAUTIFUL DEGENERATES!
FIVE FUCKING STARS!
A genuine eighties horror classic!
A magnificent collection of characters!
Actual scares!
Glorious cheese!
Linnea Quigley dancing in a fucking cemetery!
And a zombie apocalypse that ends with the United States military deciding to erase Louisville from the map!
WHAT MORE COULD A GIRL POSSIBLY WANT?!
Now, before anybody asks why Nightmare Sisters received eleven stars while this objectively more accomplished movie only receives five, allow me to explain something.
THE SACRED BATHTUB IS A SPECIAL FUCKING CASE!
It exists outside conventional mathematics.
It cannot be measured using ordinary scientific instruments.
And, according to the official records of the Halls, it may actually be a miracle.
So don’t question it.
But The Return of the Living Dead earns every single one of its five stars by delivering something we haven’t always received during this festival.
A truly wonderful fucking movie.
And with that, my beautiful degenerates, our thirteen-day Spook-n-Boobtacular comes to an end.
We’ve seen the glorious heights of exploitation filmmaking and the miserable depths of the Buttered Lens.
We’ve discovered magnificent actresses, ridiculous monsters, unforgettable dialogue, and more questionable directorial decisions than I can possibly count.
We’ve laughed ourselves sick, argued about ratings, and permanently altered the mathematical foundations of the Halls.
And through it all, one thing has remained wonderfully consistent.
WE’VE HAD A FUCKING MARVELOUS TIME!
So raise your glasses, my beautiful degenerates!
To Linnea Quigley!
To Michelle Bauer!
To Brinke Stevens!
To every actor, actress, filmmaker, and gloriously deranged creative soul who helped make these movies possible!
To the Sacred Bathtub!
To the Chainsaw Championship!
To the films that surprised us, the films that disappointed us, and the films that reminded us why we fell in love with this ridiculous cinema in the first place!
And to you, my wonderful degenerates, for accompanying me through thirteen evenings of absolute fucking madness!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
The dead have risen. Linnea has conquered. And the Sacred Bathtub remains undefeated.
THALIA’S SPOOK-N-BOOBTACULAR WILL RETURN!
Because, darling, February is coming… and I have some very special Valentine’s plans.
