Welcome To the Dead Parade #1: Back From the Dead (Again)
Re-released here again on Just the Ticket, this first installment of my own Dead series begins with a nod to Return Of the Living Dead. The inaugural film in this five-installment zombie-athon is absolutely the stupidest a zombie movie can get in terms of quality. The acting and special effects are terrible, even for the 1980s. The severed zombie limbs are yellowish and rubbery, looking more like a necrophiliac's vibrator collection than actual dead flesh, and every line is delivered in a frenzied one-note scream and accompanied by a Matthew Perry-like windmilling of the arms. But in terms of concept and message, the movie and its first sequel are self-referential comic genius. A high school student is interning at a cadaver supply warehouse, wherein two drums (military property) containing dormant reanimated corpses and the airborne toxin used to create them are stored. The teen and his smart-mouthed mentor accidentally open one of the drums and are immediately under seige by the living dead as they are slowly turned themselves after having inhaled the toxin. The usual "if they bite you, you become one of them" rule applies, but in a funny twist, Return takes place in a "real world" kind of setting where the two main characters have seen Night Of the Living Dead, and they find that severing a zombie's head doesn't seem to work like it does in the movies. Apparently, you have to burn this particular brand of zombie to kill it, after which its ashes become the airborne toxin, and then... you get the idea. Even funnier is the idea of giving these zombies the ability to speak; once they have killed a rescue party, the zombies use the CB radio to call another police car or ambulance as if they are ordering takeout.
In Return Of the Living Dead 2, the crew decides to bring back the cast of the first Return, but put them in a new setting with different relationships. The intelligent, indestructible zombie premise persists, as do the comedy, stupidity, bad acting, and special defects. But again, there is genius hidden in pointlessness as one of the characters expresses a feeling of deja vu; that he has been around these same people, and has been attacked by zombies, before.
The only decent installment across the board is Return Of the Living Dead III. In this second sequel, a couple have decided to run off together, against the wishes of the boy's military big-wig father. They are run off the road by a military truck carrying...you guessed it: barrels full of indestructible zombies and reanimation gas. The girlfriend dies, but the boy decides to sneak into his father's research compound and use the toxin to bring her back to life. What follows is part morbid love story, part twisted road movie, and all zombie flick. No bad acting, no bad special effects, and an unbeleivably heartfelt ending.
But despite the C-list star power of Peter Coyote, Return IV and V are modern-day violent duds. The zombies have fallen victim to convenience and are now killable by conventional zombie-slaying means. Return IV, a.k.a. Return Of the Living Dead - Necropolis, aims low at being a Resident Evil knockoff, and in a nod to the first two films, ROtLD V - Rave To the Grave recycles the cast and crew of Necropolis. This time around, the toxin gets used as a psychedelic at a Halloween rave party, and the results are brain-dead and stoner-stupid.
Return & Return 2: D+, Return III: B-, Necropolis: C-, Rave: D-
BRRAAAIINS!
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