(1985)
They're Back From The Grave and Ready To Party!
"The Return Of The Living Dead", written and directed by Dan O'Bannon, and starring Clu Gulager, James Karen and Don Calfa performing at their over-the-top best, is one of the prime examples of the no-holds-barred camp zombie movies to date, with laughter-inducing imagery, lines such as "Send...more...paramedics" and "They're rabid weasels" to a soundtrack with tunes by legendary punk rock groups such as The Cramps. The supporting cast includes "Scream Queen" Linnea Quigley as Trash, a red-haired punker with a tendency to take her clothes off on a random and frequent basis and dance on the tombs in the local graveyard.
The plot: at the Uneeda Medical Supply (you have to love the name) warehouse in a small town in Kentucky, foreman Frank (Karen) decides to show the new employee, Freddy, some old military barrels that accidentally ended up in the basement. Containing the leftovers of the botched army experiment that inspired the classic "Night of the Living Dead" (1968), the gas inside the barrels sprays all over when Frank starts fiddling with the containers, putrid zombies break out, and the fun is just beginning as Frank phones his boss Burt (Gulager). Burt rushes over to try and help contain the problem, but of course matters only worsen (split dogs! headless cadavers running amok!), so the two enlist the help of his mortuary friend (Calfa).
Freddy's teenage friends and his squeaky-voiced goody two-shoes girlfriend Tina show up at the supply house to pick him up when he gets off work, and become entangled in the havoc.
Photo credit: Orion Pictures Corporation, Fox, MGM
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