Yo! Spooky Month is heading to a party.
I'm guessing you're going out tonight. If you're like me and work the traditional 40 hour, Monday to Friday week, this is your Halloween night out. Maybe not - maybe you don't wanna deal with the drunks and crowds. I hear you. Personally, I'm avoiding any bars this year, a major plus. Going to a party at a friend's house. Much more relaxed but still super fun and a social outing for a change. But maybe that's not your bag. Maybe you're somewhere in the middle, wanting to stay in a watch a movie, but not a lights off, creeper kind of movie. May I suggest the movie that got me fascinated with the undead in the first place? I submit for your consideration - Return of the Living Dead.
I caught this movie on cable back in the mid 90s without any context. Being young and naive, I thought (mistakenly, I later found out) that this insane movie was supposed to be taken at face value as a horror movie. Only when I watched it as an adult did it click with me - Return of the Living Dead is a comedy zombie movie. A Zom Com, if you want to be obnoxious. Still, there are some really messed up moments from this movie - the Tar Man in the basement. The horde of rain soaked, decomposing zombies rushing the ambulance in the dark. The torso that explains through delirious revelations that zombies eat the brains of the living to ease the pain of being dead. In fact, this little known horror comedy is almost single handedly responsible for establishing that notion in wider culture.
It's not without its detractors, though. It has no connection with the much more revered, Romero-based continuity of Night of, Dawn of and Day of the Dead. John Russo, one of the producers who worked with Romero on the original Night of the Living Dead, held the rights to the titles, and thus established his own continuity with this vein of movies. It's more crass, vulgar and exploitative. It's more of a raucous, rollicking kind of movie in comparison to Romero's terrifying and academic canon. In Return's established universe, the original Night was a cover-by the government after a supposed real life incident in which an army chemical (fictional Trioxin) reanimated the dead. A group of young punks get caught up in the madness when one of their friends, who works at a mortuary, exposes a large quantity of the stuff to the outside world.
Look, let's be honest here. Return's never gonna win any prestigious awards. It had a surprisingly decent reception and box office performance when it was released. What it will do is take you on an insane ride of splatter-stick comedy and gore. It's violent and over the top, but in an absolutely intentional manner. You want to spice up your night if you're staying in? Give Return of the Living Dead a shot - there is no other movie quite like it, I gurantee it.
I'm guessing you're going out tonight. If you're like me and work the traditional 40 hour, Monday to Friday week, this is your Halloween night out. Maybe not - maybe you don't wanna deal with the drunks and crowds. I hear you. Personally, I'm avoiding any bars this year, a major plus. Going to a party at a friend's house. Much more relaxed but still super fun and a social outing for a change. But maybe that's not your bag. Maybe you're somewhere in the middle, wanting to stay in a watch a movie, but not a lights off, creeper kind of movie. May I suggest the movie that got me fascinated with the undead in the first place? I submit for your consideration - Return of the Living Dead.
