Return of the Living Dead - Verdammt, die Zombies kommen

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! (09.11.2008)

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. (08.05.2007)

The moment when a group of American teenagers with a recorder ran into a cemetery was for me an impulse that the living dead have to have their way with them. They were pissing me off, and a lot. And it was not even saved by the tits of some punk girl, who was doing a demon dance on a grave. Simultaneously two stupid scientists release some poisonous shit into the air and that causes the real mess. Their asses are saved by some black version of Rambo and the whole thing is just so funny that it is stupid. (04.04.2016)

Dieser Film gehört zusammen mit Jackson's Braindead zu den lustigsten Filmen, die im Bereich des Zombie-Genres entstanden sind. Zwar fast ohne Gore, dafür aber mit großartiger Musik, der nackten Linnea Quigley und einer absolut schmierigen, zerfallenden Leiche sowie zum ersten Mal auch mit dem berühmten Zitat "fresh brain". Der schwarze Humor hat überhaupt nicht geschadet, schließlich war es Mitte der 80er Jahre und dieser Art von Übertreibung fing an, in jeden zweiten Film einzudringen. Also absoluter Kult meiner Jugend. Schade, dass die anderen Teile nicht annähernd an das Original heranreichen. P.S. Ich empfehle auch die großartige Dokumentation More Brains!, in der man alles über dieses Kultwerk erfährt. (13.02.2011)

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. (07.12.2013)

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% (13.03.2012)

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”). (14.05.2005)