This Cult ’80s Horror Put Brains On The Menu For Zombie Flicks – /Film

Frank (James Karen), the manager of a medical supply warehouse, is trying to impress his new employee Freddy (Thom Matthews)with all the ghoulish stuff they've got in stock. There are skeletons, split dogs for veterinarian schools, a cadaver hanging in the meat locker, and a corpse sealed up in a military drum of toxic gas in the basement. When Frank accidentally ruptures the drum, spraying them both with gas, the leak brings all the dead things back to life.

After Frank and Freddy are attacked by the reanimated cadaver, they discover that the usual methods of incapacitating a zombie don't work. Their boss asks his friend at the local mortuaryto incinerate the dismembered parts. This only releases particles into the air, which gets caught up in a rainstorm and contaminates the cemetery across the street, where Freddy's punk friends are partying until he finishes work.

The formerly restful dead claw their way out of their graves as indestructible zombies with a penchant for human brains. As the situation escalates, the survivors barricade themselves inside a funeral home. Meanwhile, military bigwigs are making a grave decision to contain the outbreak.

Any modern zombie movie is inherently doom-laden, with the 21st century resurgence of the genre commonly interpreted as existential anxiety after the events of 9/11. "The Return of the Living Dead" is especially hopeless, with a version of the undead that are impossible to kill and a U.S. military willing to nuke a whole town to curb the crisis, only to make it worse.

Yet until "Shaun of the Dead,"almost 30 years later, zombie apocalypses were rarely this funny. "The Return of the Living Dead" provides far more laughs than scares, and pitting a gang of nihilistic punk rebels against indestructible zombies was an inspired match. It's a one-off in the genre, closer in attitude to "Repo Man" than any other zombie movie, highlighted by its incredible punk rock soundtrack. Is there a better tune for the ubiquitous scene of zombies busting through the barricades than the deliriously deadpan psychobilly track, "Surfin' Dead?"

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This Cult '80s Horror Put Brains On The Menu For Zombie Flicks - /Film

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero