With nostalgic thoughts of the original 1985 comic horror classic lurching through my head, I approached Return 4 with a little more excitement than your usual sequel. Hey, it didn't HAVE have to be bad. Return of the Living Dead III, also a direct-to-video/cable release, was actually quite good and developed a strong and deserved cult following. Unfortunately, my joy was quickly extinguished only a few minutes into this truly boring zombie crap-fest. I should have known, given it is a Sci-Fi Channel 'original' movie. Has the Sci-Fi Channel EVER made a good movie? On the plus side, this movie does not stick by Sci-Fi Channel's typical horror offering of giant, toxic-waste exposed, killer snakes, dinosaurs, bugs and duckbilled playpi. On the down side, it sticks by the same exact formula (trapped people facing off against something wanting to eat them) and has the expected bad writing, bad acting and stupid story. Return of the Living Dead, Part 2 (1988) disappointed many fans of the first. After recent zombie offerings like this and All Souls Day: Dia De Los Muertos, Return 2 is actually starting to look good by comparison.
Here are ten things you should know before viewing...
1. Nothing of interest happened during the first hour aside from lots of talk. Not interesting talk, just time-killer talk that amounts to nothing and generates no interest for either the story or the characters. Snooze city, baby.
2. The zombie military-unit theme was carried over from Return 3 but nothing of interest is done with it.
3. A bite to the back of the head from a zombie will result in blood gushing out like it's being shot from a waterhose.
4. Why does every teenager in a movie like this know advanced karate? The part where the guy drops his gun and says "It's game time!" before kung fu-ing a zombie reminded me of everyone's favorite movie, House of the Dead. If that isn't a bad sign, I don't know what is. And while I'm on it, how come every teenager is some kind of expert on high-powered weaponry? Just hand them any kind of huge gun or blowtorch and they automatically know exactly how to use it and their aim is always perfect.
5. Dialogue like "They're making uber zombies!" and "Do you ever feel like drilling a hole in your head to let the screams out?" just doesn't sound natural, even when spoken by someone semi-undead.
6. Male zombie-cyborg hybrids look like RoboCop with gangrene.
7. Grey-blue photography throughout does not make your film look sinister and dark, it makes it look cheap and bland. Nor does using one boring location for the majority of the film automatically make it seem scary and claustrophobic. The whole presentation of this movie was terrible.
8. When a zombie appears, make sure to cue a lame late-80s 'hair band'-style rock song that sounds like it would even be rejected from a Warrant album.
9. Watch and you'll notice that someone's gun malfunctions and/or runs out of ammo in this movie at least FOUR TIMES! And it always happens right when a hundred zombies are closing in. Of course.
10. Female zombie-cyborg hybrids go to the same hairdresser as Predator.
Well, that's my take on this future dust bin dweller. The make-up was pretty good, I especially liked the head-crushed-by-tank-wheel effect, but the rest was formula zombie movie at its most boring and unimaginative. The level of humor, in case you're interested, reaches its peak when a man is reluctant to shoot a zombie because, "I lost my virginity to her!" Give me a break.
My vote of 2/10 is both generous and kind. As of this writing, the film has 9.2 rating. I expect that to plummet by the end of the week.
Here are ten things you should know before viewing...
1. Nothing of interest happened during the first hour aside from lots of talk. Not interesting talk, just time-killer talk that amounts to nothing and generates no interest for either the story or the characters. Snooze city, baby.
2. The zombie military-unit theme was carried over from Return 3 but nothing of interest is done with it.
3. A bite to the back of the head from a zombie will result in blood gushing out like it's being shot from a waterhose.
4. Why does every teenager in a movie like this know advanced karate? The part where the guy drops his gun and says "It's game time!" before kung fu-ing a zombie reminded me of everyone's favorite movie, House of the Dead. If that isn't a bad sign, I don't know what is. And while I'm on it, how come every teenager is some kind of expert on high-powered weaponry? Just hand them any kind of huge gun or blowtorch and they automatically know exactly how to use it and their aim is always perfect.
5. Dialogue like "They're making uber zombies!" and "Do you ever feel like drilling a hole in your head to let the screams out?" just doesn't sound natural, even when spoken by someone semi-undead.
6. Male zombie-cyborg hybrids look like RoboCop with gangrene.
7. Grey-blue photography throughout does not make your film look sinister and dark, it makes it look cheap and bland. Nor does using one boring location for the majority of the film automatically make it seem scary and claustrophobic. The whole presentation of this movie was terrible.
8. When a zombie appears, make sure to cue a lame late-80s 'hair band'-style rock song that sounds like it would even be rejected from a Warrant album.
9. Watch and you'll notice that someone's gun malfunctions and/or runs out of ammo in this movie at least FOUR TIMES! And it always happens right when a hundred zombies are closing in. Of course.
10. Female zombie-cyborg hybrids go to the same hairdresser as Predator.
Well, that's my take on this future dust bin dweller. The make-up was pretty good, I especially liked the head-crushed-by-tank-wheel effect, but the rest was formula zombie movie at its most boring and unimaginative. The level of humor, in case you're interested, reaches its peak when a man is reluctant to shoot a zombie because, "I lost my virginity to her!" Give me a break.
My vote of 2/10 is both generous and kind. As of this writing, the film has 9.2 rating. I expect that to plummet by the end of the week.