A group of teenagers who, in an attempt to rescue their friend from an evil corporation, end up releasing a horde of blood thirsty zombies.
After part III the series look to have ended on a high note, it was a huge success and over time became a cult film in it’s own right. 12 years passed and we got given a new enrty to the series. Oh how I wished they hadn’t.
There were subtle changes to the series storyline with this entry. The chemical that brought the dead back to life in the previous Return Of The Living Dead films was 2-4-5 Tioxin. In this film the chemical is referred to as Trioxin 5. Also the story strays away from the series’ rules that the Trioxin zombies are no longer the indestructible juggernauts , but instead much weaker and sometimes are seen to be killed with a few body gun shots.
It amazes me how studios can mess up a franchises back story so easily, it only takes a few minutes of research to get the facts of the previous releases but no, this time they wanted easily killed zombies. I understand times change and this is over a decade later but that just ruins the sanctity of the previous films. It really does annoy me when they make changes like this and think the audience is dumb enough not to notice.
The first hour or so if this film is very tedious, it truly tests your patience, I’m used to movies with not much happening for a while, usually for character development (Hey I’m a huge Stephen King fan) but if this was for character development it could’ve been done in ten minutes. What we are given is just mindless dribble, it’s just teenagers ranting about nothing. It wouldn’t be so bad if the acting was good but that’s also painful to watch, which is a hard for me to say especially when they managed to snag Peter Coyote but even he is awful, you can see his eyes rolling with dollar signs.
The only good thing about this film is the make up and effects but even an amazing prop can’t save a film this awful. If you’re a fan of the series then this is one film that should be wiped from your memory, cancel that online order for the film and close that tab and forget all about it, trust me on this one!
This film really is terrible but the worst is yet come………
Miscellaneous facts about the film:
After devouring a security guard’s brain, a zombie picks up a phone the guard had been speaking into and says “Send more security guards!” This pays direct homage to the original “The Return of the Living Dead”, in which a zombie who had been devouring a paramedic picks up the radio in the ambulance and says “Send more paramedics.”
Director Tobe Hooper was once attached to direct this and Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the Grave early in pre-production.
Filmed back-to-back with Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the Grave.
