Many great films throughout horror history have fallen prey to bad sequels. THE HOWLING and A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET are the most noted, since their sequels were also some of the WORST movies I've ever seen! Well, sadly the curse continues, this time befalling my favorite zombie film of all time, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, with this, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD PART II... hope they didn't exert too much effort on that title... What started off as a psychotic nightmare in the lives of a gang of '80s degenerate punks, turns into the Magical World of Disney Movie of the Week, as our sex addled, raging youngsters in leather and freaky hair are replaced by the worst kind of heroes horror has known: pre-pubescent kids. Also, don't be mislead by the title, as this doesn't really continue the events of the original, but instead kinda re-tell it, like EVIL DEAD 2. But, like I said, though the events are very similar, the cast is very different. Also, director/writer Dan O'Bannon has disappeared too, replaced by Ken Wiederhorn, who, though he did do SHOACK WAVES, is also responsible for MEATBALLS PART II, another sequel that shared little more than a name with the original. Ken, you wanna be an original guy, but all you seem to get your hands on are sequels... don't try to mix them, simple make a fucking sequel to the movie you're sequeling! I tell you, mortals are so contrived I wonder why I've let you all live so long. Even though this isn't a continuation of our last film, it does feature the return of a few cast members, those being James Karen (previously known as Frank) and Thom Mathews (previously billed as Thom Matthews, A.K.A. Freddy), who are featured as, what else, a bumbling duo of half wits. Type casting can be such a kick in the ass... or in this case, a means of employment!

PART II plays like so: the military is transporting truck loads of Can o' Ghoul, you know, like the one that was cracked open and spilled the noxious Trioxin gas that brought about the last film's happy memories. Well, this is likely supposed to be the same shipment from whence the first can was lost, but since that original transport was supposed to take place back in the '60s, I guess it's not... Anyway, as always the US military displays it's incompitence like a peacock flashing it's ass feathers. Yep, another of the top secret canisters is lost, breaking free from a truck and lodging itself in a big storm drain outlet tunnel near the local cemetery... tell me that's not an obvious setup. Along come a trio of puberty-free brats to cause trouble, as they stumble across the container. The good natured of the group (also our piddling little mongrel hero), dorky young fan boy Jesse, winds up sealed in a crypt by his "friends" after they break the drum open like the typical horror movie catalysts they are. Not wanting to get into trouble for their misdeed, like I said, Jesse gets stranded in a nearby crypt as the other two go home, coughing and hacking something mad after they're exposed to the container's gaseous contents. Lucky for Jesse though, because nearby in another crypt are Ed and Joey (Karen and Mathews respectively): two nitwit graverobbers who happen to be clearing out some of the local corpses of their valuables. They hear Jesse's feeble cries for help and release him, just as the toxic smog comes rolling in once more...

A sudden thunderstorm hits, as is a requirment in any outdoors horror movie, and it saturates the ground with the Trioxin mist. In case you're not familiar with the first movie, this little event causes the dead trapped below the cemetery surface to re-animate, scratching and clawing their way to the air once more so they can... act like drunken suburbanites. Yes, where as O'Bannon gave us a new breed of undead who could run around and making functional thoughts, Wiederhorn goes for what he knows: bad Romero clones. Yep, it's back to the standard, as the zombies stumble around, look like total fools, and somehow manage to capture some frantic pedestrian dickheads and eat their brains. While Jesse and his fuckable older sister and her new would-be boyfriend/cableman run around trying to avoid the ghouls and their hungry rotted fangs, households throughout the 'hood are getting flesh hungry and prematurely decayed. As for the grave-robbers, once again they go through the stages of Trioxin poisoning, becoming stiffer and vomitting while they make the progression to becoming full fledged undead. After turning, Joey persuades his girlfriend to let him eat her brains, which happen to be so "rich and, and spicey!". She doesn't like it at first, but as with all things remotely sexual, she learns to like it and her last moments appear to be ones of lustful satisfaction.

As for the movie's pathetic band of heroes, they're also joined by their old man neighbor doctor, who must learn to overcome his lust for the bottle if he's going to save the people of the city... a story element used FAR too often. There misfortunes and misadventures lead them through a local hospital, where the film's one minorly impressive scene occurs, carried simply by the FX crew who managed to keep this film 1/2 ratings point above TOTAL loss. In the hospital's basement, Jesse comes face-to-rotten face with a stray zombie. He blows the monster in half with a magnum, but the beastie keeps on coming (remember, they were all but unkillable in the first film). The excellence here is the effects, as, not only does the creep's torso keep crawling hungrily toward out pint-sized mini-hero, but his legs and spinal remains also walk around in pursuit! Like I said, highlight of the film and thank you to our FX-meisters. When the heroic gang tries to escape the city, they come upon resistance, as the entire place has been quarantined off and armed soldiers with instructions to kill on sight surround the only streets out of this prison of the badly ressurected! However, when a fallen powerline proves there is a way to end the monster mash, the group hasan idea involving the local power plant and a van full of cow brains...

Using the cow brains as bait, the doc, the kid, the cable guy, and the aerobicizing prude lead the cranium munchers to the power plant. Locking the gates and not allowing them to escape, they then switch on the juice and, with a combination of stray water puddles and bare wires, they zap them all, shutting down their after-life functions and saving the day for bad movies everywhere... and if they'd done it 90 minutes sooner, they could've saved my sanity and my sense of dignity. Leave it to a 10 year old boy to not only show up the entire US Army, but steal 89 minutes from the life of the God of Death himself! Not wholey without merit though, the movie did have some good points... well, half points anyway. The all around feel of the flick was like a bad family movie. For future referance, I suggest you guys leave the good natured happy horror to Mr. Boogedy. Some of the lines between Joey and Ed are funny, only because we heard the exact same ones delivered between their characters in the first movie. Though, when under O'Bannon's direction (instead of just stolen from it) they were actually amusing, not just whimsical. Many of the gags were either terribly unfunny (such as the horrible dialogue, dumbed down for the kiddies) or unabashedly stolen (such as the severed hand giving a hearty "fuck you" finger... wonder where that came from), and either way I was anything but laughing. Actually, I was doubled over in some serious bouts of pain that not even passing a stone the size of a meatball could compare to. I'm not talking those little TV dinner meatballs either, I'm refering to those giant baseball sized ones that the old Italian woman down the street cooks up everytime there's a funeral! O'Bannon was much better when it came to darker, more adult humor... kids ruin everything! In the end it all comes out the same: brown, stinky and with a texture unpleasing to the touch. What can I say but, if you're reading this Ken Wiederhorn (which I know you never will), you've proven that you are generally a foolish man who is simply unable to conquer the medium of cinematic horror... in other words, you're a jackass and I won't stop if I see you in the street! Look for me Ken, I'll be the on in the flaming hearse... Oh, and only one thing will stave off my bloodlust Kenny: a good excuse as to how that annoying severed head character managed to make it all the way to the power plant! Did she roll?! How can a head roll itself, let alone that distance?! Forget it, no story will do, and only your painful demise, rife with anal electrocution, will calm my furrowed brow.

Sequels: RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD III

If You Liked This Flick, Check Out: RETURN OF THE LIVING ZOMBIES or NIGHT LIFE