Return of the Living Dead Part II (1988)

I am a sucker for horror-comedies. There’s something brilliant about making a movie that gets the audience to laugh at someone getting their brains eaten. Return of the Living Dead Part II does just that. The first Return of the Living Dead was one of the pillars of staple zombie movies. This is definitely a fitting sequel. If I was the one pitching the concept for this movie to a producer I would describe it as Night of the Living Dead meets Stand By Me. Yes, you read that last sentence right. The main character is a young kid with an “F You” attitude toward authority. He gets bullied by a neighborhood punk until the punk gets turned into a zombie. Then the sparks really fly.



The zombies in this movie rock. Excellent make-up, excellent gore, excellent staggering walks. My only issue is with their level of intelligence. The zombies in this series can talk, operate complex electronics, drive a car, etc. I forgive that, though, because it adds to the comic value of countless scenes. There are also some very nice zombie horde scenes in this flick. As usual, the zombies aren’t really dangerous until they form a mob, which is something they happen to be good at.



This movie also offers a multitude of geeking for the horror/sci-fi fan. For one, two actors who died in the first movie inexplicably return as featured characters in this one. If you’ve seen the first one you know the first people to get infected by the zombie-gas are played by James Karen and Thom Matthews. They then proceed to narrate the entire transition from living to living dead. Same exact thing happens in this one, but the characters they play have different names. There’s a glorious moment in this movie where Matthew’s character yells out, “I feel like this has all happened before!” Also, the guy who played Skinner on the X-Files has a cameo in this as “Sarge”, an army guy who tries blasting a bunch of zombies before getting owned. The comedic apex of this movie comes in the end sequence when the hordes of zombies are getting electrocuted. A Michael Jackson look alike stumbles onto screen, complete with the red and black get-up from Thriller, and does a quick spin move before collapsing on the ground. Classic.