The Return Of The Living Dead

What if Night Of The Living Dead had been based on a true story? Hushed up, hidden away... Starting out as a spoof, Dan O'Bannon's music-driven comedy takes this premise and runs with it, but ultimately it delivers much more than parody. With very real thrills and lashings of gore, plus its own contributions to the zombie myth, it's a hugely entertaining work.

The story begins in a manner typical of trash cinema. We see two bumbling employees accidentally release a mysterious gas in a medical supply warehouse beside a graveyard. At much the same time, a group of bored teenagers arrives to party amongst the tombstones. They're crude but lovable Troma-type kids with a realistic teenage attitude to life, not one rendered more sophisticated to please an adult audience. They drink, squabble over petty things, and dare one another to explore their spooky surroundings. Trash (Linnea Quigley) takes off her clothes and dances on a tomb. Nobody here is going to get A-grades - but soon we have to question whether or not they're going to make it as far as the next morning.

Though ostensibly more comedic, O'Bannon's zombies are every bit as creepy as Romero's in their relentlessness, every bit as daunting in their continually growing numbers. They're a little more articulate, though, leading to a classic scene in which one of them, made captive, explains that she wants to eat human flesh to stop "the terrible pain of being dead". After an ambulance crew meets with a sticky end, there's also the much-imitated zombie line "Send more paramedics".

Good-humoured and exuberant, effortlessly likable, Return Of The Living Dead got all the jokes in its source and expanded them with plenty of its own. Long before Shaun Of The Dead ever thought of leaving the pub, it claimed its place as the ultimate zombie comedy classic. It has stood the test of time well, and still has plenty of meatiness to satisfy a modern audience. This is parody with brains.