RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD @ 40

An old hand tries to impress a rookie at a medical supplies warehouse by showing him cannisters containing preserved zombies. He claims they are the zombies from the real incident that inspired Night of the Living Dead. A little larking about results in the release of gas from one of the containers. Across town, a group of teens break into the local cemetery for a party. I wonder if these two plots will coincide.

Yes, of course, that's all that really happens in this film but that's the point. Dan O'Bannon's horror comedy happens in the same universe as Romero's Dead canon and wants you to know it. When one character witnesses the failure of a particular zombie-despatching technique he cries, "the movie lied?" The comedy here is not trained on Romero, though, nor is it a series of Zucker-style parody scenes. There is a solid narrative arc and something on its mind.

I still find the teen gang funny with its mix of subcultures. There's the mohawk punk, the pink haired girl punk with the moniker Trash, the new wave boy in the suit, the sci-fi post punk girl, and the clean cut middle class girl. At first you think that none of these people would be seen dead with each other but this is the mid-'80s when a lot of these looks were old hat and, having been in a scene dwarfed to a tiny minority by a big flabby mainstream in the early '80s, I can swear that anything outside of normie flocked together. Really, though, it's pretty typical American tone deafness for British trends as designed by a filmmaker about a decade older than someone who'd get that. 

Even if unintentional, it just adds to the fun. There is a lot of good conceptual and slapstick gagging going on at the depot and the mortuary, especially when the initial pair of colleagues are on the turn and the zombie fragment is questioned. There are pre-Dawn-remake running zombies (they don't work here, either) and talking ones, and this is the source point for the gasping voiced, "braaaains!" As the scale drops to skirmish level before the telescoped military involvement, things fall into place but the film continues to be nothing but entertaining.

Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead came almost two decades later and lifted the game by focusing on the central relationships, much as Romero astutely had done. The British flavour of dark irony allows it to fulfil both horror and comedy demands in a way that Return cannot. I dislike comparisons in reviews as they are only ever of slight use. However, the difference between these two films is instructive. O'Bannon's plays away from any real mockery of the Romero canon but must heighten the comedy to do so. This means that the zombie prevalence that ends every Romero Dead movie can be subverted for a double take that allows for the sequels that inevitably followed. Wright's film rules out sequels, puts a stridently deadpan cast upon the nightmarish scenario of the zombie plot but raises the stakes for the principal characters while keeping the faith. That makes it durably both funny and suspenseful when it needs to be. Return feels, and will only ever feel, like an 80s curio, however welcome it is with pizza and beer. Shaun stands solid.

That said, if you wanted a zombie comedy of lower concept than Weekend at Bernies 2 with yet some serious genre credentials (Google Dan O'Bannon, you'll have titles to catch if you don't already know). You won't be watching through your fingers but you won't regret the choice, either.