Greatest Movie of All Time of the Week: Return of the Living Dead!

Theme: Zombie Zoo - Tom Petty

FUN FACT: anyone is allowed to make a sequel to Night of the Living Dead (1968), because it's in the public domain because someone cropped the copyright symbol off a poster or something, further reminding us that copyright is fake and gay (it's also the reason you see it playing on TVs in other low-budget movies a bunch).

Me relating the above to my enraptured date.

We also have this fact to thank for the sole worthwhile zombie movie, Return of the Living Dead. If you're an extraterrestrial who just touched down on Earth five minutes ago and have no context whatsoever (and I know you are), let me put it this way: the most interesting thing fans have to discuss regarding this "genre" of "films" is whether zombies should walk slow or run fast.

Allow me to weigh in.

Return provides the only correct answer: they should lurch around like the iconic Tarman, swarm on cops and paramedics, and say "brains" a lot. Yes, this is the kino in which the zombies actually say "brains". Return's zombies even have such a thing as motivation:

The plot is that a chemical leak results in an outbreak of zombies, who attack a group of delinquents hanging out in a cemetery, while the hapless working stiffs who unwittingly caused it run around trying to fix it, in the process making everything worse for our unsuspecting band of wastrels.

>tfw no friends who cruise around and hang out in cemeteries (or otherwise)

Return further benefits from being made in the 1980s, when people dressed like this and listened to punk and new wave music, so it looks and sounds interesting and characterful, instead of everyone just looking vaguely grizzled. Our cast of characters have names like "Suicide" and "Trash", the latter played by C- or D-movie staple Linnea Quigley in her most indelible role:

You can just start a conversation like this.

So pleased is Return with itself that it replays a highlights reel over its end credits, and so good is it that this comes off as warranted and even endearing instead of douchey. Can YOU think of any other movies that could pull this off? I know I can't be bothered to.

It's not as though there's any deficit of highlights.

So if you too have no other loser friends to go hang out with at the cemetery, ring in All Hallows' Eve with the closest approximation. ♫ DO YOU WANNA PARTY? IT'S PARTY TIME