Return of the Living Dead - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Return of the Living Dead



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
Being a child of the 1980s, Return of the Living Dead was one of the seminal films of my entire childhood. By the time I was 6 years old (early 90s) my brothers would let me stay up late with them and watch horror movies, so have had the phrase “brains! More brains!” pretty much burnt into my psyche. Not to mention that as a teenager I was attracted to it for a completely different reason (you all know what I’m talking about). Fast forward years and years and I’ve burnt through the VHS, the DVD, the collector’s edition DVD, and the very mediocre MGM disc when Blu-ray first came out. However, I sadly missed out on being able to grab the 2016 collector’s edition Blu-ray from Scream Factory when it debuted and by the time I remembered to grab the film, it was out of print and expensive. However, Scream Factory has gone back with a new 4K remaster of the film’s original elements, and dropped a MASSIVELY feature packed 4K UHD set on us today that is to die for.

Over in Louisville, Kentucky, a medical supply plant foreman named Burt (Clu Gulager) is trying to impress his new assistant Freddy (Thom Mathews) by showing him some old cadavers in sealed containment units that the U.S. Army had “accidentally” mis delivered there 14 years ago. Unfortunately one of the containment units fails, spewing a toxic gas over the two men, and seeping out into the surrounding area. Turns out that the gas is actually a super secret military experiment meant to animate the corpses of the dead, in which it succeeds in spades as the entire Sematary comes alive with corpses, and their only purpose in “after” life is to eat fresh human brains for sustenance.

The story is REALLY simple at heart. It is mainly two pronged, with Burtk, Freddy, and their boss Frank (James Karen) trying to figure out what is going on, and escape from the living hell they created, with the second set of protagonists revolving around Freddy’s punk rocker friends who were hanging out around the graveyard waiting for Freddy to get off work. The two sets of people have to meet in the middle around the neighborhood crematorium and stay alive long enough to get out and not turn into brain eating zombies themselves. The end.

Return of the Living Dead is a complete blast, and also a rather fun wink and nod to the audience as well considering that it’s 1 part zombie movie, and 2 parts parody. The flick gleefully makes fun of the old classic 1960s and 1970s George Romero zombie movies, going so far as to actually discuss how to kill a zombie based off of Night of the Living Dead. The Punk rocker teenagers are all your typical cannon fodder (except for Freddy’s girl Tina, played by Beverly Randolph) who are played off as humor of the movie.

However, it’s really the zombies themselves that are the most influential part of pop culture today. They were one of the first, if not THE first zombie movie that utilizes fast zombies that chase down their victims, and the use of practical effects, gore, and some optical effects make for an ooey, gooey gory mess that has stood the test of time in both it’s nastiness, and it’s enjoy-ability. It’s alone a hysterical mess of nudity (Linnea Quigley was notorious with her red hair and 85% screen time nudity back in 1985), laughs and a mile a minute kinetic ride to the tongue in cheek bottom, making it probably one of THE most talked about zombie movies of all time.




Rating:

Rated R by the MPAA




4K Video: Video:

I actually haven’t watched the film for about 10 years due to how mediocre the MGM disc was, but this new 2022 4K remastered version of the film is simply stunning. It’s a bit darker, with less blown out white levels, and looks incredible in 2160p. The colors are rich and vibrant, with the red of Ernie’s outfit standing out against the dulled yellow and brown looking 1970s built mortuary, and the red of Trash’s hair is just jaw dropping with the new HDR application, even in the dead of night at a grave yard. Depth of view is very solid, with good dimensionality to everything and a wonderful layer of grain over the whole picture. Darks are deep and inky, and no matter how pitch black the film gets, you can see every little bit of detail (of course some of that being a bit TOO much detail with all of the cheesy prosthetics and painted on red blood). All in all, this is a fantastic looking 4K remaster and the best I’ve ever seen the disc look (from what I could tell, the new 4K remaster is also given to the Blu-ray included on the set, but I don’t have the older Scream Factory 2016 disc to compare against to see if there is any visual improvements there as well).





Audio:

This appears to be the same set of audio mixes found on the 2016 disc, which includes a 2.0 DTS-HD MA Mono theatrical mix, a 5.1 DTS-HD MA mix that was used for the DVD and older Blu-rays, and of course a 2.0 downmix of the 5.1 mix for night listening. I’m a fan of the mono track, but the 5.1 mix does liven things up a bit. Still, even with a full 5.1 surround mix, the track was never designed to be SUPER active. The film lives heavily in the center channel with light main speaker usage as well. Surround usage is limited to the score and a few moans and groans as the zombie horde over run the humans, but LFE is very comfortable and powerful when needed. I have a hard time deciding whether I like the Mono mix or the 5.1 mix, but both are actually more similar than not, and it’s fantastic that Scream Factory included all 3 audio options for the 4K and the included Blu-ray as well.











Extras:

Disc One - 4K UHD
• Audio Commentary With Gary Smart (Co-author Of The Complete History Of The Return Of The Living Dead) And Chris Griffiths
• Audio Commentary With Actors Thom Mathews, John Philbin And Make-up Effects Artist Tony Gardner
• Audio Commentary With Director Dan O'Bannon And Production Designer William Stout
• Audio Commentary With The Cast And Crew Featuring Production Designer William Stout And Actors Don Calfa, Linnea Quigley, Brian Peck, Beverly Randolph, And Allan Trautman
• Zombie Subtitles
• In Their Words – The Zombies Speak

Disc Two - Blu-ray
• Audio Commentary With Gary Smart (Co-author Of The Complete History Of The Return Of The Living Dead) And Chris Griffiths
• Audio Commentary With Actors Thom Mathews, John Philbin And Make-up Effects Artist Tony Gardner
• Audio Commentary With Director Dan O'Bannon And Production Designer William Stout
• Audio Commentary With The Cast And Crew Featuring Production Designer William Stout And Actors Don Calfa, Linnea Quigley, Brian Peck, Beverly Randolph, And Allan Trautman
• The Decade Of Darkness – Featurette On '80s Horror Films
• Theatrical Trailers
• TV Spots
• Still Gallery – Posters, Lobby Cards, Movie Stills And Behind-The-Scenes Photos
• Still Gallery – Behind-The-Scenes Photos From Special Make-up Effects Artist Kenny Myers' Personal Collection

Disc Three - Blu-ray Special Features Disc
• The Return Of The Living Dead Workprint – Includes 20 minutes Of Additional Footage (In Standard Definition)
• More Brains: A Return To The Living Dead – The Definitive Documentary On The Return Of The Living Dead
• The FX Of The Return Living Dead – With Production Designer William Stout, FX Make-up Artists William Munns, Tony Gardner, Kenny Myers And Craig Caton-Largnet, Visual Effects Artists Bret Mixon And Gene Warren Jr., And Actor Brian Peck (Expanded Version)
• Party Time: The Music Of The Return Of The Living Dead – With Music Consultants Budd Carr And Steve Pross And Soundtrack Artists Plus Musicians (Expanded Version)
• The Origins Of The Living Dead – An Interview With John A. Russo
• The Return Of The Living Dead: The Dead Have Risen – Interviews With Cast Members Clu Gulager, James Karen, Don Calfa, Brian Peck, Thom Mathews, Beverly Randolph, Linnea Quigley And More…
• Designing The Dead – Interviews With Writer/Director Dan O'Bannon And Production Designer William Stout
• HORROR'S HALLOWED GROUNDS – Revisiting The Locations Of The Film
• A Conversation With Dan O'Bannon – His Final Interview

Final Score:
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Dan O’Bannon’s Return of the Living Dead is a fun juxtaposition compared to the serious drama of George Romero’s flicks (before Romero went full comedy himself later in his career) and his decision to infuse the movie with fast zombies, wacky humor and eye candy turned out to be the right decision. We’ve owned this film in half a dozen formats over the years, but this Scream Factory disc really does it justice (I’ve heard the Blu-ray set Scream Factory released was stellar also), with great video, good audio and a KILLER set of extras that will take you hours to get through. HIGHLY recommended.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Clu Gulager, James Karen, Don Calfa, Thom Mathews, Beverly Randolph, John Philibin
Directed by: Dan O'Bannon
Written by: Dan O'Bannon, Rudy Ricci, John A. Russo, Russell Streiner
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 HEVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DD 2.0
Subtitles: English SDH
Studio: Scream Factory
Rated: R
Runtime: 91 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: October 18th, 2022

Recommendation: Fun Watch