Writer and director Ken Wiederhorn (Shock Waves) pitched Return of the Living Dead II (ROLD) in hopes the movie would serve as his segue out of the horror genre. Though perhaps the converse of his intended means, Wiederhorn fully deserves what he desired: Complete blackballing from the genre with nothing less than a shift kick in the butt on his way out.
During transport, an army convoy loses a canister of 2-4-5 Trioxin into a gully near a new development called Westvale. Three boys find the canister and succeed in opening it. The toxic reanimating agent filters into a nearby cemetery and rejuvenates the dead as they come alive in search of brains.
And that’s it. Sound familiar? It should because this parody of a parody comes across like a copy of a copy, only several times further removed. It would seem as if Wiederhorn approached the production company and pitched his idea thusly, “I’m gonna remake Return of the Living Dead scene-for-scene, only I’m gonna take the creativity and style out of the original and make a start-to-finish piece of shit. How’s that sound?” Apparently, the heads of the company where preoccupied at the time (I envision them in the restroom, attempting to ignore the irritating guy who’s shown up every day for the past month, barking some crazy movie idea, as he offers to “hold that for them” in hopes of gaining their favor) and a) didn’t realize Wiederhorn took off with their checkbook or b) let Wiederhorn have at it in order to shut his whiny ass up. Regardless of the “why,” what resulted was a cinematic disaster which, well, I’d rather not talk about it but, sigh, it’s my job.
First, I wasn’t kidding when I stated that the movie is scene-for-scene. Not only do we have the same characters profiles, but a handful who died in the original reappear in the sequel without apology, playing, guess what?, the same damn role only this go around their names have been changed (thank God I read the credits, otherwise I would have never have guessed). We have Jonathan Terry as Colonel Glover and James Karen (Mulholland Dr., All the President’s Men, Poltergeist, Nixon) as Frank-cum-Ed with Thom Mathews (Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives) as his counterpart, Freddy-cum-Joey. The latter two are poisoned by Trioxin and, once again, die while remaining alive (however, their rigor mortis doesn’t stop at the neckline this time around as we watch Ed who, after being diagnosed, gets off the exanimation table and walks away) as Joey chases after his girlfriend, Brenda (Suzanne Snyder, Killer Klowns from Outer Space), longing after her brains.
But wait, hold on, don’t get me wrong, there are a handful of differences in Wiederhorn’s version. The story is sped up so that the plot and character development in O’Brannon’s production is hereby eliminated in order to cram more, though unfortunately lesser, special effects into the movie’s running time. Also, the Trioxin gas has been changed from white to green but, luckily, the slime monster reappears as does the severed corpse of the woman from the original (yet with the addition of a horrible wig). Aside from the fact that the film serves little purpose in that it offers nothing that the original doesn’t do and do better, we do have Brenda consenting to allow Joey to eat her brain for, I suppose, the sake of their relationship.
Yes, I’ll consent to the notion that Wiederhorn wasn’t attempting to maintain the tone, level, and pace of the original and that he was trying (that being the key word) to parody O’Brannon’s film. The mocking nature of the dialogue, as Joey states, “I feel like we’ve been here before” while characters repeat their lines verbatim, comes across like a bowl of wet bran flakes (rather a fowl of bet wan blakes). However, the amount of “cheese” involved, atop the fact that it isn’t articulate or witty, drags the production to challenging new lows. For instance, we are witness to a severed hand which, once thrown out of a car, gives the middle finger to the fleeing passengers. The sentiment couldn’t have better represented my feelings concerning the hour-and-a-half of my life which I will never get back having watched this brain cell-depleting waste of time.
Bottom line, Return of the Living Dead II is the only film I’ve come across which has a zero rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It think “completely rotten” does this movie too much justice. To put it another way, it is the polar opposite of what Wes Craven did in parodying his own work in the Scream series. Though I thought I’d never see the day I’d make this declaration, Ken Widerhorn should have implemented gratuitous nudity, that way at least something would have held my attention for a few brief, fleeting moments.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
