Directed by:
Dan O'BannonScreenplay:
Dan O'BannonCinematography:
Jules BrennerComposer:
Matt CliffordCast:
Clu Gulager, James Karen, Thom Mathews, Don Calfa, Linnea Quigley, Mark Venturini, Brian Peck, Miguel A. Núńez Jr., Beverly Randolph, Jewel Shepard (more)VOD (2)
Plots(1)
On his first day on the job at an army surplus store, poor Freddy unwittingly releases nerve gas from a secret U.S. military canister, unleashing an unbelievable terror. The gas re-animates a corps of corpses, who arise from their graves with a ravenous hunger for human brains! And luckily for those carnivorous cadavers, there is a group of partying teens nearby, just waiting to be eaten! (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (6)
B-movie bollocks, but quite fun at that. The zombies in particular are great and they make fun of themselves – I'm sure you've never seen a reanimated corpse take out two doctors and radio for reinforcements. It's a pity that the zombie sequences are so weirdly edited and the camera never shows us the best parts, and that the first 40 minutes of the story could have been cut out and we wouldn't have missed anything. As horror, it’s ridiculous, but as a funny homage to zombie movies it’s pretty good. 55%
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Before Peter Jackson had success with Bad Taste and Braindead, Dan O'Bannon managed to successfully combine a splatter film with a black comedy. He too was not hindered by a low budget and managed to bring to the screen an astonishing ensemble of comic-book-styled zombies in various forms (a shrunken old woman with no lower half, a naked punk, an animated collection of dead butterflies, dismembered dogs, and a walking skeleton covered in tar). Quite an entertaining punk zombie film, reflecting on the 80s death metal era and the nuclear scare of the time. The zombies here, contrary to previous conventions, are quite fast, relatively intelligent and they talk (“Send more cops”).
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Yeah, why not? I didn’t like The Return of the Living Dead the first time I watched it several years ago, but I took it in better today. It’s mostly a comedy, almost a parody, there’s not much to say about horror; about fun, on the other hand, yeah! From the characters the only one worth mentioning is Ernie (Don Calfa), I didn’t find the rest very likeable and I downright hated Freddy’s friends. Actually, this insufferable bunch is what I remembered the most from the first screening, but now it will be different. Brains, more brains!
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I could say that this is a horror comedy, but that would mean that fear would have to mix with laughter, and that is not true in this case. It is actually a crazy comedy with a popular zombie theme. At first, it feels quite fresh and funny, but soon the ideas run out and in the second half, the film falls into tiresome stereotypes. Overall impression: 45%. If you are a fan of trashy horror productions, you can give it any number of stars you want. The screenwriter knew exactly what he was doing.
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The parody suits the zombies well. All the clichés of the genre are explored here with unprecedented intensity and the ideas (punks, background music, rain) are truly not spared. Yet no matter how good the masks are, no matter how frantic the pacing, it lacks a more perverse dimension, spiced up with a memorable scene or two. In terms of what I like in this regard, I will always prefer Jackson's Braindead.
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Gallery (202)
Photo © Orion Pictures Corporation
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