Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

*cue catchy jingle*

Eight more days to Halloween, Halloween, Halloween.
Eight more days to Halloween - Silver Shamrocks!

Welcome Boys and Ghouls to Month of the Living Dead, my thirteen day (and then some) tribute to that most wonderful of holidays ever - Halloween! Join me, wont you, as I watch the sinister and the silly, the morbid and the macabre, the violent and gruesome in a two week bloodletting that comes to a boil on the eve of all saints.

*cue thunder and lightning effect*

So sit back, turn the lights down low and get ready for today's presentation of. . . .

RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD! Bwah-hah-hah-hah-hah!

*cue commercial break*
Wait - a funny Night of the Living Dead? This can only turn out one of two ways - utterly brilliant or a bigger disaster than the Hindenburg crashing into the Titanic. Horror comedy (a sub genre called Splatstick) in the eighties have a way of making even the most forgiving tolerant horror fan the willies (and not in a good way). My Demon Lover, Transylvania 6-5000, or Return to Horror High, anyone?

While working his very first shift at the Uneeda medical supply warehouse, Freddy gets the nickel tour of the facility. Along the way, Frank the supervisor shows off a special secret hidden away in the basement. Frank shows him a top-secret military canister - barrels of Trioxin 245 - that were accidentally shipped to their warehouse.

You see, Night of the Living Dead was a documentary, based on a real event, and Trioxin 245 is the byproducts of that event.

Faster than you can say "oops!", Frank accidentally releases the gas into the storehouse, reanimating the medical school experimental cadavers upstairs. To cover up their mistake, Frank, Freddy and their boss Burt - with the help of Ernie the mortuary worker - incinerate the reanimated material in Ernie's crematorium. Pity that the resulting smoke then mixed with the clouds and began to rain on the cemetery next door. Whoops . . .

Return of the Living Dead is the stepchild of Romero's Night of the Living Dead - obviously descended from the army of FLESH EATING GHOULS! that menace the living, of course - but more directly than that. John Russo and George Romero couldn't setting on how handle sequels to the 1968 classic, so they agreed to split the rights. Romero's series is just ". . . of the Dead" while Russo carries on with the "Living Dead" moniker. Eventually the rights passed to Tobe Hooper (of Texas Chainsaw Massacre fame) who hired Dan O'Bannon (the writer behind Alien) to script write before eventually pulling out on his own.

As you can see, RotLD has quite a pedigree - which is probably why it was so well received by the horror fans and proved to be so popular over the years. Well, that and it's a damn fine film. The movie manages to jump back and forth from comedy to horror and back again without blinking an eye. Along the way, O'Bannon was able to milk some great performances out of his cast and generated some creepy atmosphere from his great location and sets - despite being forced to work with a reportedly very tiny budget.

The cast is really great stuff - Thom Matthews and James Karen really deliver some good performances as the inept warehouse workers, Don Calfa is clearly have fun playing a slightly over the top embalmer and resident "dead" expert., and we get to see Scream Queen Linnea Quigley's first roll - ok, she's not that hot of an actress, but she's got a great rack.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the great performances come from the zombies themselves. Instead of just a faceless horde of flesh eating ghouls, we get ones with life (if you'll pardon the term) and personality. Talking zombies, police zombies, naked zombies, split in half zombies, skeleton zombies, oozing zombies, Tarman! Half Woman! - so much more than just the featureless menacing crowd we usually get. And of course this is the birth of the "BRRRAAAAAINS!" catchphrase that so often gets attributed to zombies.

(Unless you're a vegetarian zombie. Then you go "GRRRAAAAINS!" Sorry, I digress)

I should really take a moment and mention the score too. Usually, unless you're Goblin, the soundtrack to a zombie flick often gets swept under the rug or glossed over. Not so here - filled with the traditional eighties synth music and sporting a ton of punk rock bands like The Damned, TSOL and The Cramps the soundtrack is one of the most rocking horror scores in recent memory.

It doesn't have any of the subtle subtext of Romero's series - hell, it's not very subtle in and of itself. Still, it delivers some fine action, great effects, some horrific kills and a hell of a soundtrack. Looks like a winner from where I sit.

TOTAL BODY COUNT: Dozens (hundreds off screen)
MOST MEMORABLE KILL:
GALLONS OF BLOOD USED: 5
SPRING LOADED CATS: 0
THE MORON OF THE MOVIE AWARD GOES TO: The judges are split on a tie decision between Frank and Freddy, with Burt coming in a close second.
BREASTS ON DISPLAY: 4
BEST LINE: "Send more cops"

THE DVD -
A nice letterboxed anamorphic print that looks pretty good. Now this was the older release I was viewing, so I cant tell you about how the print on the new re-release looked.

THE EXTRAS -
Starting off the supplements, we get a commentary with Dan O'Bannon and production designer William Stout. It's not exceptionally deep, but they both have a good time watching their film and chatting away.

Then there's a far too brief feature on the production of the film, focusing on the design of the corpses and what it was like trying to get them too look good on the screen. We get a conceptual art gallery from William Stout, 10 television spots and two trailers - the green band (for all audiences) and the red band (for R rated audiences)

I also understand that there's a new DVD that came out a couple of weeks ago with some new features on it (and an in-character commentary track from the zombies). I don't have it, so I can't speak to the quality - but I do know that they dropped a couple of features. Buyer beware.

Oh, and I have to mention the way cool (by mostly useless) glow in the dark cover. Keen but ultimately pointless.

THE BOTTOM LINE -
A great zombie comedy movie that lovingly takes its horror roots and turns them gleefully on their ear. Sadly this was a series of diminishing returns, and the next four sequels weren’t worth a damn - but don’t hold it against the original.

Join me next time for another journey into the macabre. Until then. . . pleasant SCREAMS! Bwah-hah-hah-hah-hah!

*cue thunder and lightning effect*

My Month of the Living Dead reviews:
* THE EVIL DEAD
* NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD
* PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE
* THE FOG
* REVELATION OF THE DALEKS
* DAWN OF THE DEAD
* THE LAST MAN ON EARTH/HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL
* DAY OF THE DEAD
* RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD
* THE OMEGA MAN
* NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD 3D
* THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED UP ZOMBIES
* LAND OF THE DEAD
* MASTERS OF HORROR - HOMECOMING
* 28 DAYS LATER
* WHITE ZOMBIE
* HALLOWEEN



Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age