Return of the Living Dead

Only so many movies stand the test of time, but Return of the Living Dead keeps coming back for more brains.
Return is the movie that started the notion of zombies eating brains, with the dead constantly craving the brains of the living, often making it vocal by growling “braaaains”.
Return also broke the rules that most zombie movies follow, by allowing zombies to talk, run and even use basic objects, such as a paramedics radio.
Return of the Living Dead has a punk-rock soundtrack, which matches the characters attitudes and dress in the movie. Most of the characters in the movie fit the generic 80’s punk-rock look, with one of them even claiming it is a lifestyle.
Return of takes a different direction from Night of the Living Dead than Dawn of the Dead took. While Return is considered a sequel to Night, it is in a seperate universe than Dawn.
The movie takes place after Night of the Living Dead, explaining that the events of Night took place due to 2-4-5 Trioxin, a fictional drug that reanimates the dead.
Early on in the movie you learn that corpses infected with Trioxin are being stored in drums in the basement of the medical supplies facility that Freddy works at.
Of course, starting the infection was a leak from the drums storing Trioxin. The drums, built by US Army engineers, don’t hold up and begin leaking gas, infecting Freddy and his boss Frank.
Freddy ends up playing a vital role in the movie, showing the zombification process of 2-4-5 Trioxin from infection to complete loss of control over the hunger for human brains.
From there, all hell breaks loose. You see the effects of 2-4-5 Trioxin on the deceased immediately, as medical cadavers, preserved animals and more reanimate back to life.
The messy part is unlike Night of the Living Dead, the zombies don’t die nicely from a shot to the head or dismemberment, leading to the great start of spoofs in the movie on the Night of the Living Dead movie, with references to the movie itself by name, the zombies near-invincibility and even paramedics sent to help being devoured while a zombie uses their radio to have them send more paramedics.
At that point the movie turns into a wonderful horror-comedy mash-up, parodying Night of the Living Dead often, while feeling like a classic horror film in every sense.
Most of the movie takes place at a morgue in the middle of a cemetery, possibly the worst place to be trapped at during a zombie apocalypse.
Return offers cheap thrills from wonderful campy effects. It follows the classic horror rules, with a large body count, characters tossed in for the sake of nudity and the ability to churn out sequels.
So this Halloween, don’t waste your money seeing a generic sequel to a series that gets pumped out every year, watch a classic. Return of the Living Dead has withstood the test of time, and is a great horror movie that is easy to access and full of laughs while still being frightening.