Rating: 
Summary: Inspired first half -hour, lackluster second.
Review: I first saw The Return of the Living Dead about ten years ago, back when horror films were still in full "80's style," meaning they didn't have the annoying sarcasm of too many of today's genre offerings. But Return was different, aiming for laughs and scares, a combination that wasn't too popular at the time. Ten years ago, Return of the Living Dead scared the ...out of me, when I was still a young kid who had never seen a zombie film before. Having just seen it recently, I now find myself trying to stifle a yawn. That's right, the movie actually gets pretty dull, something you'd never expect from a film about zombies on the loose in a cemetery.And really, it started so well, with genuine comic inspiration. Basically, the story is about a chemical that gets loose and brings the dead back to life, but unlike pretty much every zombie movie out there, nothing can kill them, except burning them to ashes. So the majority of the running time follows a gang of punks and factory workers trying to survive while the zombies run amok outside. The first thirty or so minutes feature a number of laughs, including one riotously hilarious scene where the workers try to kill a zombie by disabling its brain. Unfortunately, comic momentum fails to last, as the rest of the film stops delivering the humor and, supposedly, tries to deliver thrills. This approach fails to work, the film is neither scary nor exciting. The action scenes don't bring about much excitement mainly because it's hard to ignore the slapstick mood the movie has. It feels like these scenes should be funny, but director Dan O'Bannon approaches the last forty-five minutes without attempting an honest-to-God joke. If he did, it was pretty much material that had already been presented at the beginning (the whole "send more cops" line gets very tiresome). The other huge flaw is the soundtrack, which noticably dates the film back to the 80's. Any possibility for sheer visceral thrills in the movie's second half is smothered by the lame punk rock songs. The movie's own score sounds more comical in general, which doesn't fit well with the more horror-oriented approach. Thus, O'Bannon really stuck himself in a corner, resulting in a film that ultimately fails to produce an adequate amount of both laughs and thrills. But the movie still has a large fan base, so a lot of people must still find it fresh and funny, so who knows, you might enjoy it more than I did. Return isn't really such a bad movie; hell, the acting's actually decent and the production values are pretty good, but I'll take George A. Romero's Living Dead series, the recent Resident Evil, and even Return's own sequel (which did maintain comic momentum throughout) over this entry.
** 1/2 out of *****
Rating: 
Summary: IT'S ABOUT TIME!
Review: Of the true classics in the horror genre, I think the title of this review says it all. I've waited for years to see this hit DVD. So few movies actually manage to still give me the creeps when I watch it alone late at night. A true gem of zombie horror.
Rating: 
Summary: It was better when I was younger...
Review: Two nitwits who are employed at a company that provides corpses for ballistic testing, split dogs for university professors, and much more decide to check out some canisters in the company basement. After an accident with the canisters the dead merchandise in the warehouse wakes up and begins to terrorize the the two employees. After some trouble with one of the "living corpse" they finally get to cremate it and think their problems are gone--or at least so they think. This horror film produces some jumps and scares with a smile; however, the characters could have been depicted with much better clarity and acting.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best movies ever!!
Review: I always remembered this movie growing up and being a product of the 80's like I am I am so glad that MGM finially released this movie on DVD. I have already purchaced a copy and I can only say that it is even better after all of these years. I haven't seen this movie in a long time, but I can say that they just don't make'em like this one any more folks. I have heard that if sales are good for this DVD that MGM is going to release a special directors cut. I always thought that the George Romero living dead movies were good, but they were a little too serious. Dan O'Bannon I think came up with a better movie with more humor to lighten up the subject matter and make the ROTLD movies more fun!
Rating:
Summary: A vital branch of zombie evolution
Review: I didn't ever think they'd release this one. Going way back, to the original Night of the Living dead, two resultant movie series were given birth. Romero's Dawn of the Dead/Day of the Dead storyline involed an apocalypse in which the zombies had taken the whole world, reducing humanity to small pockets of self-destroying resistance. But, with the Return of the Living Dead, it was the exact reverse. You had small outbreaks of zombie epidemic, stemming from original zombies, stored in canisters, that couldn't be destroyed. Where Romero's zombies were kind of mindless (except for "Bub" of course)and more a kind of mass attack than anything else, the zombies from Return of the Living Dead oftentimes had faculty of thought and speech, which just seemed to make them a little creepier somehow. More than that, you got a tighter pictures of those infected with the zombie disease, gaining insight into their transformations, nausea, numbing cold, going through rigor, which seemed to make the idea of turning into a zombie more palpable. Additionally, the movie was funny. It was that Chainsaw Massacre "My family's always been in meat" kind of funny. The zombies looked more outlandish then most, the cast was larger than life, a bunch of clowns that talked tough until the zombies were knocking at their back door. The story centers around, well, a graveyard, and a mortuary. There's one part where this guy cooks himself in his own crematorium. The two Return of the Living Dead sequels weren't that bad, but they're both eclipsed by the original. Also, the movie has a killer soundtrack... If you like zombie movies, you'll love this one, a spotted gem in the rotted crown of undead massacre films. For me, this movie goes right up there alongside Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Zombie, and Resident Evil. Oh yeah, baby, give this one a try.
Rating:
Summary: Well its about time!!! ... send more cops!!!
Review: Finally. Return of the Living Dead is on DVD. The picture is beautiful and the sound, while only mono, is really good. ROTLD has never looked better. The commentary track is terrific. If you are reading this, then you probably know how great the movie is. Therefore, I will just give you my gripes. I just got my copy from Amazon.comtoday, and only watched once, but here is what I noticed... 1) "Take a Walk" by the Tall Boys (the song that plays when the gange runs from the medical supply to the mortuary) is eleminated from the movie -- although you can vaguely hear it on the commentary track and the spanish track. 2) The keep case says Freddy works at a military supply warehouse -- no, its Uneeda Medical Supplies 3) Rumor has it that a special directors cut will be released depending how well this edition sells -- that angers me. Anyway, loved it!! go buy it, guys, and lets get the director's cut!
Rating:
Summary: A MAJOR MOMENT IN MODERN HORROR CINEMA!
Review: Although it is overlooked by many horror fans, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD is a very important film for it updates the "zombie movie" into a fully mature sub-genre inside horror cinema. We all know Romero's great trilogy NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, DAWN OF THE DEAD and DAY OF THE DEAD. These were great films for they were the true beginning of the "zombie movie". But in the 80's, the zombies lost terrain to the slasher movies (in the FRIDAY THE 13th tradition) and more compeling villains (in the Fred Krueger tradition). Being a zombie fan, O'Bannon knew that the zombies needed an updating. This is why RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD is so important: it brought the zombies into the 80's character/action oriented horror films. With this thought, he wrote a great screenplay that rewrote the "zombie genesis". So, in this film, the zombies of George A. Romero are refered as a mild version of something that was really true: a chemical accident in India that ended as an Army cover-up operation; and the Romero's zombies just a way of putting it into films without being bothered by the U.S. Army. Having established that point, O'Bannon introduces us to the REAL zombies: living dead that talk and move (they run!) just as living people do. They are extremely dangerous because they are not those dumb slow-moving zombies people used to walk through (like in the Romero's films). They are also intelligent as they devise ways of getting what they want - brains. And this is where O'Bannon makes a new wonderful twist: the zombies do not die by destroying their brains (for they are already dead and the brain has nothing to do with it). Instead it is the zombies who try to eat living brains! Having said that, it is also important to point that the screenplay is a beautiful piece of cinematic storytelling for two reasons. FIRST because the whole story works flawlessly in the sense that the inicial incident, the characters' actions and the consequences are very well constructed. SECOND because the story weaves a sense of loneliness and confinement (I am talking about the way they treat the narrative space in relation to the story) that works wonders with the characters and what happens with them (this treatment of space echoes Romero's masterpiece DAWN OF THE DEAD).
The ending is great (so great that the sequels didn't touch it)and the soundtrack is very good. The actors are well cast and the film boasts a lot of dry humour. The extras in this DVD edition are fine and they show that a good edition of a film who's by now more that 15 years old is a matter of wanting it. Congratulations to MGM! RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD is not the best horror movie ever, but inside the zombie sub-genre it is one of the best things ever made. Scarry and fun! The only flaw (for me) in this movie is a female zombie who speaks without lips. I never found it credible. But who cares!
Rating:
Summary: OMG!!!.....IT'S ABOUT TIME
Review: I've waited for this day to come, which i thought would never get here. I once owned this movie on VHS..but someone had stolen it from me. This is my all time favorite scary movie. I grew up on watching this film, and when I had seen that MGM was releasing it in DVD, it almost brought tears to my eye's. No other movie has ever given me the creeps as much as this movie has. I had seen the sequel to this movie Return of the Living Dead 2 in theaters, when I was a child. I loved that movie to, but there's something about the first one, that keeps me hooked for life. My boyfriend grew up near by where they had filmed the cemetary, and i defenitly plan to visit. I will always charish this movie, and this time I'm going to lock it in a safe, so no one can take it away from me again...thanks amazon.
Rating: 
Summary: I'm still in stiches.
Review: "Return of the Living Dead" is a hilarious horror/comedy inspired by George A. Romero's classic "Living Dead" movies. I saw this movie when I was just a small kid and loved it. This is about as Camp 80's as horror movies get. The movie's premis is a nice homage to Romero. Apparently, the movie "Night of the Living Dead" was based on a true story, and it was covered up by the US government. The bodies of the zombies were sealed in oil drums and dispersed. Two workers at a medical supplies warehouse find one of these drums, puncture it be accident, and unleash a gas that brings the nearby dead back to life. As luck would have it, the warehouse is right next to a graveyard. The rest writes itself, and the movie has some of the funnist moments in horror movie history: A cadaver running amok in the warehouse, a zombie's head being hit out of the park with a baseball bat, a zombie who orders "more paramedics" like he was ordering pizza. And above all, a stylish 80's hard rock soundtrack. This is one of my favorite party movies, because it get everyone (even the non-horror fans) howling. It is sometime bloody, but the comedy overshadows the horror elements. The DVD in question is a bit light on the extras, save for a documentary that is fun, but tepid. But the big perk is the best picture and sound quality I have ever seen this movie in. The DVD really makes a difference. Get yourself a copy and see what I mean, you won't regret it.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but not great!
Review: When I first seen Return of the Living Dead back in 1985, I loved it! It was the best zombie movie I have ever seen. It was serious, but funny too...and most of all the gooooore...hehe. I still have the original video and when I heard it was coming to DVD...I nearly .... my pants! Thank you..it's FINALLY coming out! Today is August 27th and I went and bought my copy of it. I got home, closed the shades and began the movie. When the movie was over, I felt a little disappointed :o( Don't get me wrong. The picture quality is better and some of the extra features are nice too...but they re-did some stuff in the movie I wasn't happy with. First in one scene...they completly changed the music that is playing during that scene. Next, there were a couple scenes that were suppossed to have music...but didn't. Finally, the most important thing of all...they changed Tarman's voice! I was in shock that they did this stuff to this great movie. They should have left it as it was. But still, if you can get passed those little changes...it is still a good movie. Thank goodness though that I still have the original..hehe.
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