I was a pretty big fan of writer/director Dan O'Bannon from his work in Heavy Metal magazine & the John Carpenter movie Dark Star (watch it) so I couldn't wait for this bonkers entry into the Zombie genre. I saw it at the theatre when it came out & loved it. Last night, after consuming an excellent brownie, I decided to pull the DVD out & see how it held up in 2022. Any of the current hot, young directors could have made this today as a retro homage to B movies & people would love it. This trailer gives away a lot of the plot points so if you do plan to watch it, maybe skip the trailer.
Return of the Living Dead and Day of the Dead came out the same year, and I remember lots of debates among my fellow horror movie fans about which was the better zombie flick of the year. I loved both of them but, at the time, I was in Team "Day", mostly because of its place in the (un)holy Romero trinity. But, for whatever reason, Return is the movie that is more indelibly stamped into my memory. My guess is that Linnea Quigley's iconic performance may have something to do with that.... And, of course, 1985 was also the year that one of my favorite horror films of all time, Re-Animator, came out. What a time to be a horror movie fan!
Love it. I saw it at the drive-in in 1985 as a teenager. I bought the blu ray a few years ago and it really has held up remarkably well. Really one of the finest horror comedies ever, IMO.
I saw it in 1985 as a teenager-great music Cramps,Jet Black Berries and of course Burn the Flames· Roky Erickson
I watched it for the first time a few weeks ago. It was fun but probably not something I'll come back to all that often. For some reason I went in thinking it was the actual sequel to Dawn, not realizing that Day is actually that film, so that may have added to the confusion. It certainly left me scratching my head until I did some research and figured out the difference.
Me too. Bought soundtrack. Half is very very good. Movie made little impression then and the clips I see now don't change that.
I saw it recently for the first time. Not sure about the nudity, I guess it was a selling point, but thought the film was fun and we'll made with some clever ideas.
I think an early MGM DVD included the Damned song, but no subsequent U.S. disc, including Scream Factory's upcoming 4K, have it. The rumor is that The Damned (or their management) ask for too much money, more than any company could afford to spend and still make a profit on RotLD. However, the UK label Second Sight issued Return of the Living Dead on blu-ray with all of the original music, and it was a region-free disc. That's out of print, but we can hope Second Sight issues the movie again on region-free 4K. The licensing laws are different in Europe. Someone on the blu-ray.com forums explained that Second Sight only had to license the Damned song from the record label, not the band, and it cost them much less. I'm not a lawyer, though, so I'm not sure how accurate this is.
If the number of kids who knew this song in my junior high school is any indication, this song might've had a shot at being a hit if it was released as a single.
"I thought you said if we destroyed the brain it'd die!" "It worked in the movie!" "Well it ain't workin now Frank!" "You mean the movie lied?!"
