Exploring the Sequels

# 6 Return of the Living Dead 2

A fun follow up with a bit more camp and lot less brains..

The Return of the Living Dead released in September of 1985 was a modest hit making over 14 million on a 4 million budget while becoming a certifiable cult classic and one of THE great zombie movies of any era. It created something new in reimagining zombies as the older generation desperate to cannibalize the minds and lives of 1980’s counter cultural Gen X kids from the perspective of Punk Rock caricatures written by a baby boomer in his late 30’s. With some military complex distrust for good measure, it’s the past returning to eat the future and the movie accomplished this successfully with critical and commercial fanfare. In other words, ROTLD was ripe for an eventual sequel.

Dan O’Bannon, unfortunately, did not return for Return of the Living Dead 2 (ROTLD2) and Ken Wiederhorn (Shock Waves, Meatballs 2) took over as director. Before and between the first movie and this, Steven Spielberg and Amblin Entertainment had broken box office records (and John Carpenter and Ridley Scott’s souls) with the first of many heart warming “kids on an adventure” films and beginning with the one of the biggest movies of all time, ET: The Extra Terrestrial (1982). The mega success of ET was quickly followed up by movies like Gremlins (1984) , The Goonies and The Explorers (1985), Space Camp and Stand By Me (1986), and The Gate, The Lost Boys, and Monster Squad (1987).

These films captured the hearts and shaped the minds of every 80’s and 90’s kid infecting them with an incurable disease known as Biased Nostalgia Syndrome (BNS) that lay dormant until finally becoming active in adulthood. It’s sad and incurable (hey, like zombism!) and they will try to pass it on to their own kids if not found in time and treated properly. If the country had embraced The Thing or Bladerunner in that summer of 1982 instead, this may not have happened and we would all be part of a collective hive mind now or I would be eating noodles with Edward James Almos in the pouring down neon lit LA rain (sounds awesome). No problems in the world whatsoever in 2025…

ROTLD2 takes it story beats from these movies focusing more on light hearted comedy and less on any real horror or scares with an intelligent, gadget making, misunderstood kid. The opening scene follows a military truck (absolutely haphazardly) transporting canisters of you know what through what appears to be a small town housing development, and a couple of the drums fall off and vanish into a drain tunnel. We are not in Louisville anymore and there appears to be no memory from anyone of a previous zombie outbreak or the four blocks of that city getting nuked by the US Army in years past (shrugs).

Our precocious lead Jesse (Michael Kenworthy) is forced by two neighborhood bullies, Billy (Thor Van Lingen) and Johnny (Jason Hogan) for an initiation into their club (these guys really suck with their naturally punchable faces). They take Jesse to the local cemetery outside of town to trap him in a mausoleum before Jesse escapes later and runs away. All three boys eventually discover one of the isolated barrels (opening it way too easily) and contaminate both Billy and Johnny. The released Trioxin raises corpses from their graves but Jesse gets away unscathed. It might be the last time Jesse sees bully Billy alive, but it won’t be the last time he sees him dead.

Once the zombies begin laying waste to the town, Jesse, his older sister Lucy (Marsha Dietlein), the sensitive, hunk electrician Tom (Dana Ashbrook), the habitually drunk, wildly questionable doctor named Doc (Phil Bruns), and two bickering grave robbers Ed (James Karen) and Joey (Thom Matthews), team up for survival from the new batch of brain eaters and a platoon of National Guard soldiers eager to cover up the latest zombie outbreak at all costs. All the mayhem leads to a final showdown at an electrical plant against the zombies and military once our heroes learn (a bit conveniently) that electrifying the undead is the one way to stop them for good, ending on a much lighter and happier note than the darker, nihilistic ending of its predecessor.

ROTLD2 takes place after the events of the first movie but may not exist in that same world (?). Thom Matthews and James Karen are confusingly back this time (they died as zombies in part 1) but as completely different characters. It’s great to see them both as they are obviously having fun and are lovable character actors , but ultimately are just playing up the same relationship dynamics and facing the same circumstances from the first movie. Ed and Joey are both contaminated with Trioxin again inside the same mausoleum they break into, inadvertently helping Jesse escape from the bully’s prank, while stealing human skulls to sell to an unnamed Medical Supply company and snag some jewelry on the side. It’s a weird job choice and story thread.

The majority of the cast ultimately lacks the acting chops and charisma of our previous troop in ROTLD. The movie suffers from Joey’s girlfriend Brenda (Suzanne Snyder) and Lucy’s major character traits being “constantly pissed off and yelling all dialogue” and Dana Ashbrook is fine but less comfortable here playing the straight laced hero than his other more typecast roles after this in Waxwork and Twin Peaks as a capital A asshole. He’s a more interesting and prickishly charming secondary character actor than leading man expected to carry a movie partially on his back.

But the man, the myth, and the absolute legend-king perpetually living in constant god mode who saves the movie is Doc. Played by prolific film and tv character actor Phil Brun who’s take here boasts a vaudevillesque, old school Marxian comic performance (Groucho not Karl) transcending any thresholds of reality within the film into pure, uncut, “the good shit” camp where you can feel the actor desperately wanting to break the 4th wall at all costs and just give you a little taste. I almost expected one of the characters to ask him “who are you looking at” and then Doc say “why, no one” while looking into the camera and winking like a stinker at the audience. It’s awesome, and talk about understanding the assignment and what movie you are making. He nails it. I’d also like to note the mom leaves to go out before the zombie outbreak while Judy babysits Jesse and is never heard from or mentioned again (again shrugs).

ROTLD2’s practical zombie effects lack the individual attention to details of the zombies in part 1 and many of part 2’s creatures had a cheap Halloween mask aesthetic that reminded me of pastier versions of Grandpa and Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1 and 2. Multiple zombies looked so similar in dark suits and sporting a jet black Saturday Night Live Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer haircut that I would have had a difficult time telling them apart if not for each of them dying in different ways.

And our returning champion TarMan makes a brief appearance attacking Jesse in the drain tunnel. He is played again by the same actor, Alan Trautman, but the make up is different with a less detailed and skeletal look and movements compared to The Return of the Living Dead. TarMan feels like an obligatory afterthought and has become the Halloween 4-8 Michael Myers’ mask of zombies. Like, how are you not getting this iconic look down pat fellas?

The punk and death rock jams from ROTLD are sorely missed here as part 2’s soundtrack has been downgraded to more generic hair metal songs typical of the time.

I will warn any potential viewers that there is a scene late in the 3rd act where our group of survivors are fighting for their lives in the now abandoned town and a group of zombies have broken into the pet store and are eating the animals. It’s a short scene shot from a distance, is obviously fake dogs, cats, birds, etc, and is played for laughs but honestly, I didn’t care for it. It could have been left on the edit room floor and not suffered.

Some positive highlights though include a zombie trying to climb out of his grave but the zombies walking around above ground keep stepping on his hands and head knocking him back into the hole, a disembodied hand thrown out of a car and while laying in the road gives them the finger, zombies being shocked by a ton of 1980’s Ghostbusters electricity special effects, a brief cameo by Mitch Pileggi as an overzealous soldier named Sarge for you X Files heads, and a cringey af, but kinda goofily funny zombie cameo of a once beloved pop star (impersonator) that I’m not sure was even cool or THRILLING in 1988.

For all of ROTLD2’s shortcomings I mostly enjoyed it and is just right for a rainy, fall day around Halloween when you’re in the mood for some not completely bad 80’s horror. Although it’s rated R, it’s a light R, and more hard Temple of Doom PG13. Full on comedy, more cartoonish and less gore, minimal foul language, and zero nudity. This could be a decent and fun gateway horror for some kids and if I was comparing it to another movie’s tone, story beats, and character similarities it would be Gremlins (lesser quality to be sure though) more than The Return of the Living Dead.

I grew up in a small rural town out in the country on a few acres. I loved being outdoors, playing in my nearby creek, and exploring the woods. But as a kid I was also drawn to what felt like that cinematic magic of Spielberg’s imagined suburbia I mentioned previously, riding around with friends on 10 speed bikes, communicating on movie quality walkie talkies, and talking shit to each other in a horror movie poster covered tree house (in an actual tree!!). That feeling of BNS still hits me even today when I watch Elliot and ET fly past the moon, Horus kick The Wolfman in the nards, Corey Haim saying with awe “death by stereo” when killing a hair metal biker vampire, or Phoebe Cates telling her and our traumatizing story of how she learned Santa isn’t real.

And that’s what’s frustrating about ROTLD2. I like it enough to lament its moments of quality that really work and could have been great, but have to contend with it being pulled down and devoured by mediocrity in a script that is not entirely realized, boasting characters that are less developed, and a lack of brains on what made the first movie so special. It may have enough juice to destroy the army of undead but the movie lacks the electricity to raise itself out of its own grave into something distinctively iconic.

I give this a light recommendation as it’s a likable, almost sooo close to being a cult classic, that’s genuinely trying to have fun. Sometimes that’s enough so quit acting like a stiff and maybe loosen up a bit. Pour yourself a drink, take a hit of whatever Doc is smoking copious amounts of (not with kids around!), and check it out and live a little!

Thanks for reading and coming up next time we are gonna talk broken glass nipple piercings and the importance of wearing a helmet while riding a motorcycle in the more serious and verrrrry different Return of the Living Dead 3. It could get Horrorble!

I know y’all gotta have that free bonus content each week (I spoil you) so here is some deep, investigative trivia and my top 5 favorite # 2 horror sequels…

Would love to know yours too.

***If you look at the original movie poster for Return of the Living Dead 2 and compare it to the original poster for Fright Night (1985) they are very similar (Living Dead 2, you got some explaining to do).

1.) Evil Dead 2

2.) Dawn of the Dead

3.) Bride of Frankenstein

4.) Halloween 2

5.) Fright Night 2