Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Michael_Elliott Return of the Living Dead Part II (1988)** (out of 4) Jesse Wilson (Michael Kenworthy) and a couple friends stumble across a container, which contains the infamous gas that causes the dead to return to life. Later that night the friends accidentally release the gas and the zombies come looking for brains.RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD PART II was the first horror film I ever watched on the big screen back when I was eight years old. At the time I remember liking the film because I could relate to the Jesse character and it was fun pretending that I was him battling all these zombies. With that said, even at that time I knew this sequel was a major step back from the original film and as I've gotten older I've enjoyed this film less and less.The film tries really hard to capture the mood and spirit of the original and that includes paying homage to several of the characters in the original include Tar Man, Jr. showing up here. We've also got James Karen and Thom Matthews returning but this time playing grave robbers who wind up battling zombies again. The two actors have that chemistry that they did in the first picture but it just isn't as fresh or original here. Even the zombies here are pretty bland as there just aren't too many memorable ones.The film remains slightly entertaining because you do like the characters and there are a couple funny moments scattered throughout the picture. There's a lot more humor here than in the first movie but the problem is that a lot of it doesn't work. Another problem is that there isn't nearly enough zombie action and even the gore level is pretty low. I've always thought this here played like a cleaned up version of the original and it just doesn't have that dark tone that it needed.RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD PART II has some minor entertainment scattered throughout but certainly not enough to keep it moving at a good pace.

blackacid When I was a kid I had the poster to this movie on my wall. Not just that, I also had a 4x3 foot cardboard stand from the local video shop that stood proudly in the corner of my room.I also had a miniature cardboard display next to a 5 foot RoboCop, a 4 foot Crocodile Dundee and a 6 foot Robin Williams from Good Morning Vietnam.Liking this movie was a given, I had stacks of Fangoria magazines piled next to my graphic novels that were cushioned next go my porn collection. Comics, gore, porn.... everything a growing teenage boy needs, but why is it that I can't remember anything from this movie, yet I could recite lines from the original verbatim?25 years on I got the Blu-Ray of the first 3 ROTLD movies and decided to spend a whole Sunday watching them back to back with hot winter food and alcohol, but 5 minutes into this....effort, it all came flooding back. It's appalling.I'd like to say it's like a lifeless corpse of a movie in some ironic attempt at thematic humour but it's just a pale imitation, a copy bereft of charm or wit, a typical studio failure to replicate an original premise that had vibrancy, heart and soul. From the awful staged sequences of the badly directed kids 'fighting' at the beginning.Cringe-worthy music that sounded like it was taken from a TV movie sound library.Shocking editing, as the 'gas' creeping through the graveyard is blatantly shot on 2 completely different film stocks and it just looks woefully poor. Yes, the original movie suffered from certain budget restraints and I could write a list of deficiencies as long as my arm but that makes it all the more memorable and charming and re-watchable. All of these years later, watching Return Of The Living Dead again, just hours ago was fun filled, laugh a minute entertainment. This film is everything the first movie isn't and everything we dread about sequels.I have no idea what Ken Weiderhorn thought he was doing but pissing on the legacy of a great concept. I switched this film off 15 minutes.I guess I must have done the same when I was a kid, before tearing the poster off my wall and ripping the cardboard stand to pieces.All of these things, utterly forgettable.

Scott LeBrun It's inevitable that this first sequel to the fondly remembered "The Return of the Living Dead" wouldn't be as much fun. It's mostly a more-of-the-same type of sequel, except that the comedy content is increased. Perhaps writer / director Ken Wiederhorn ("Shock Waves", "Eyes of a Stranger") realized that they couldn't top the original, so decided to take things in a goofier direction. The result is a number of gags that vary in quality. Sometimes the movie is amiable and funny, sometimes it's just silly and tiresome. But the actors give it 100% (especially returnees James Karen and Thom Mathews), and Part II does have some good energy and pacing. Certainly the zombies are made to look more cartoon like than stylized.The Army is transporting several barrels of that wonderful chemical Trioxin when some of them get mislaid. Curious kids look inside one, unleashing the deadly Trioxin which contaminates all of the corpses in a nearby cemetery. Among those who will have to save the day are plucky child Jesse (Michael Kenworthy, "The Blob" '88), his older sister Lucy (Marsha Dietlein), and cable TV installer Tom Essex (Dana Ashbrook, 'Twin Peaks'). Meanwhile, grave robbers Ed (Mr. Karen) and Joey (Mr. Mathews) buy themselves trouble by attempting to purloin human skulls.The cast of familiar faces also includes Suzanne Snyder ("Killer Klowns from Outer Space") as Joey's shrill, annoying girlfriend Brenda, original Morty Seinfeld actor Philip Bruns as the drink-loving Doc Mandel, and Mitch Pileggi ("Shocker", 'The X-Files') as Sarge. Other returnees from the first film include Jonathan Terry (who seems to be playing the same role here), Allan Trautman (who appears much too briefly as a less impressive looking Tarman), and Brian "Scuz" Peck, who plays a featured zombie here.Dopey dialogue abounds, and there are some notable gags: Brenda punches in the face of a zombie, another one trying to rise from its grave keeps getting stepped on, and a third getting blown in half, only to try to reunite its upper and lower body. The characters are generally a lot less interesting this time around, so the viewer may be more likely to root for the zombies.Not bad - it does deliver some modest chuckles - but "The Return of the Living Dead" would have been a tough act to follow anyway.Six out of 10.

tomgillespie2002 If you're a fan of the cult horror film Return of the Living Dead (1985), then chances are you've watched this lazy sequel, only to be left wondering where the last 90 minutes of your life have gone. The plot surrounds another lost toxic barrel, containing the chemical gas that will awake the living dead. An obnoxious child witnesses the birth of the zombies after the gas is accidentally released, and the town is soon overrun by seemingly indestructible, brain-eating zombies. A couple of gravediggers robbing the dead are caught up in the midst of the zombie outbreak, and with the boy and his family, try desperately to survive the onslaught.If the plot sounds extremely dull and familiar, it's because it is. The first film was a very amusing, and often quite clever little movie, bursting with ideas and scenes of pure lunacy brought to life by a cast who look like they're genuinely having fun. Part II obviously knows this, and rather than trying to expand on the originals quirky charm and develop the universe, director Ken Wiederhorn, who ended his relatively short career in television, chose to simply re-hash the first, involving similar scenes and situations, and even bringing back some of the actors. What the film becomes is almost pure comedy, aiming at a teenage audience (although the humour is for infants), and lacking the fun horror and gore from the first. There's nothing that even comes close to the limbless female zombie demanding "braaaiinnnss!" from the first.What we do get is a wise-cracking severed head with the voice of a finger-snapping black woman, a little boy hero who I was praying to be brutally murdered, and a zombie dressed as Michael Jackson doing the Thriller dance (yes, really). It's such a desperate, pathetic attempt to humour an audience that was most likely getting into each other's pants in the back row, and I fail to see how this would amuse anyone apart from those who are entertained by jangling keys. Even James Karen and Thom Mathews, who were very funny in the first, look uncomfortable with the crap they are given to work with. It's just one boring, cringe- inducing 90 minutes, made worse by the fact that this is a missed opportunity, given the quirky charm of the first. One fellow IMDb reviewer put it better than I can, so I quote - "not funny, not campy, not scary, not good."www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com