"Return of the Living Dead 3"
by Sean McTiernan
Horror sequels are a lot less formulaic than the cast of Scream would have you believe. Sure, there’s a definite sense of having to re-bottle the lightning that made the first bottle so awesome. But because the hook of the movie is already in place, the residual weirdness can come to the fore along with the bits people liked the movie from the first movie. That’s why Pinhead isn’t that big of a deal until Hellraiser 2 and why Jason doesn’t get his mask till the second movie. Because horror plots are often so flimsy, sequels often allow for an evolution of ideas and a more refined pass. That’s why Evil Dead 2 is so genius” it’s Evil Dead but a hundred times more demented. You could even compare horror sequels’ repurposing of established tropes and other peoples’ ideas to the remix culture in music. (You’d be a pretentious windbag, but you could definitely try. That one’s for free, Chuck Klosterman.)
Return Of The Living Dead is a perfect zombie movie, unjustifiably underrated and sadly ignored in the last decade’s fervent obsession with the walking dead. Any time anyone mentions zombies nowadays it usually devolves into one of two conversations: “Hey zombies are played out and so are vampires, where’s all the teen-Frankenstein love stories, am I right ladies?” Or: “Oh fast ones are real scary but actually they’re not zombies like Romero zombies so I hate it… or do I hate it? I’m not sure.” This is a shame.
What should actually happen is everyone breaking into a choreographed dance number to sing an ode to how Return of The Living Dead pretty much has the whole zombie movie thing sewn up and down to a science. This dance number should have people in brain costumes holding signs that say “Eat Me!”
The only reason it seems that Return Of The Living Dead is revered is that it’s too funny. It’s not slyly satirical in a way that lets the audience go “Ah yes, Zombies in a shopping mall… I hear you brother… boo for capitalism.” It’s unapologeticly, bitterly hilarious, constantly finding new ways to sadistically punish everyone in the movie. But it also spends plenty of time being brutal. The Tarman in the basement is one of the best single zombies in movie history.
The film totally ignores most of the supposed rules for making a zombie movie. In fact, it establishes its own, which are far more fun. These zombies can think, they only want to eat brains and they can talk (and often display black humor: “Send More Paramedics”). They can also run… very fast. Zombies running in 1986? That puts a bit of a dampener on Simon Pegg’s much lauded alleged witticism concerning sprinting and zombie lore. Just another example of how unfairly Return Of The Living Dead got ignored in the last Hot Topic zombie revival. It’s even got a beautiful nude punk zombie named Trash in it, played by an actress who went on to film her own zombie-themed exercise video.
Seriously, I don’t think a movie could have more awesome things about it. It even inspired an awesome thrash punk band.
Now you know how great Return of the Living Dead is, you should also know how different Return of The Living Dead 3 is: it is almost completely different. While it keeps some of what made it great (better looking zombie, punk protagonists and its own excellent zombie ruleset), it takes these things in a whole other direction. Eschewing the pitch-black comedy and manic energy of its predecessors, RotLD 3 is the story of one girl slowly and painfully turning into a zombie.
Julie is the boyfriend of a proto-grunger called Curt. When Curt isn’t sitting around waiting to be an extra in Singles and planning to change the “C” in his name to a “K,” he and Julie are illegally sneaking into a high security military compound to watch Curt’s dad, Col. Reynolds, monitoring experiments to create zombies using a special ooze. This, I’m sure you’ll agree, is pretty gnarly. When Julie dies in a handjob-related motorbike accident (it happens, kids: arrive alive!), it only stands to reason Curt would inject her with the same stuff his dad was using and bring her back to life despite witnessing a re-animated person slaughter a couple of innocent scientists in a blind murderous rage. Curt’s not much of a planner. What follows is Curt and Julie’s attempts to deal with Julie’s inevitable transformation into a fully fledged zombie. Turns out, it’s not exactly an easy or painless process.
RotLD 3 is book-ended by scenes in government compounds built for experimenting on the undead. But for most of the movie the threat is decidedly human. It’s thrilling to see gang members doggedly pursue a woman knowing that she will eventually eat them. The Loved-One-Turning-Zombie trope is usually good for a subplot in some horror movies but, in focusing on it, RotLD 3 makes the processes a lot more compelling. Because Julie was a relatively fresh corpse, her transformation takes a lot longer than others. She describes in detail the horrible feeling of death, the insatiable hunger she feels and even her anger at Curt for trying to resurrect her.
Curt’s a bit rubbish though, so you get the feeling attempted resurrection is exactly the kind of useless bullshit Juile expected him to pull at some stage in the relationship. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ineffectually tried to resurrect all the girls he dates who die in handjob-related biking accidents. I bet when he resurrects them, he pisses and moans in the exact same way when they try to eat people’s brains and can’t love him cause they’re dead. It seems like a very “Curt” thing to do. He actually ruins the pathos in the scene where Julie tries to kill herself because she decides she can’t live as a zombie. Even though she is baring her soul and being genuinely heartbreaking, Curt just bitches over the whole speech about missing how things “used to be.” This has the hilarious effect of making it look like Julie tearfully jumped to her death just to get away from Curt’s childish complaining. I know I’d do the same.
One of the oddest touches is Juile’s constant need to self-harm which seems, in some odd way, to allay her desire to kill humans. Of course, this need and desire eventually collide in an impressively gorey section where Julie drives hundreds of pieces of broken glass and metal into herself. Then, looking like some sort of riot grrrl cenobite, she slaughters and eats the gang members that have been tormenting her and Curt (who sucks). And even though we don’t see many other zombies in this movie, when we do, they are something special. The filmmakers seem to have spent extra time making every zombie look uniquely horrific, far from the identikit hordes you get in most zombies sequels.
Return of the Living Dead is definitely in the top 8 horror movies of all time and if you haven’t watched it, you’re pretty ridiculous and people only invite you to parties cause they feel they have to. But please, you should also give a look to its second sequel. Though some have tried (hello, Colin) no other movie conveys exactly how hard it sucks to turn into a zombie. And how hard it sucks to go out with Curt. But mainly the changing-into-a-zombie bit.
Sean Mc Tiernan has a blog and a twitter. So does everyone, though. He also has a podcast on which he has a nervous breakdown once an episode, minimum. You should totally email him with your questions / insults/ offers of tax-free monetary gifts.