THE CHINESE TYPEWRITER (1979)

I watched the entire movie and I still don't understand the story. Then again, I’m a stupid fucking worthless piece of shit. Why couldn’t my worthless fetus-self have just been aborted? Nope, I had to be cursed to live and now I’m watching this stinker. Anyway, the story is about a bad guy who steals an airliner by simply flying off in it. The owner hires two detectives, Tom Selleck and James Whitmore, Jr., (or “Whitemore” as that one newspaper clipping shown below says) to get it back. Boring stuff happens and our heroes come up with a plan to say they have a bogus blueprint for a “Chinese typewriter”. What the fuck? Fuck me, fuck my entire life, fuck being alive, what the fucking this shit? Being alive is a waste of my time.

The only reason this turd even has a minor footnote in movie history is it has a few connections to the 1980’s television program “Magnum, P.I.” As a fan of that show, I thought it’d be fun to check out THE CHINESE TYPEWRITER. Wrong. While I do understand my thinking from a few hours ago…the reality has been nothing but pain. I wish I knew karate just so I could dropkick this smelly DVD into a tree shredder.

Lifeless acting, underdeveloped (and boring) characters, weak action scenes, unfunny humor (I’m talking Nikki Glaser-level antifunny), needlessly confusing story, bland camerawork, a newspaper featuring a reversed photograph from a scene that takes place later in the movie (what is this LADY TERMINATOR? Or the TV-edit of EARTHQUAKE?), slow pacing, multiple annoying usages of the term “percentage play”, wasted scenery.

The few connections to Magnum are interesting (I guess), but not worth wasting the 77 minutes it takes to watch this turkey. The most unusual is a small cutscene of a beachside shower that was later used in a Season 1 episode of Magnum. That was just odd.

RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD 3 (1993)

Twenty-four-year-old teenagers Julie and Curt are just so in love it makes you wanna puke. Julie especially loves Curt’s big, throbbing security card that he stole from his military father. They use the card to observe a poorly secured Top Secret experiment involving zombies. Watching dead humans getting chopped up and shot in the head gets Julie all worked up so they go back to Curt’s crib to boink. During said boink session, Julie gets topless and cannot stop talking about the anguish of the dead. This kills Curt’s nerd boner and he takes out his frustrations by arguing with his father. Afterwards, Curt shows off his lack of motorcycle driving skills by launching Julie into a utility pole. She ded and Curt’s still horny so he sneaks her warm cadaver back into the military base and pumps her...full of 2-4-5 Trioxin gas. Bad idea.

RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD 3 might have "Return of the Living Dead" in the title, but outside of the corpses in the 2-4-5 Trioxin gas barrels there’s really no connection to the original film at all. Which sucks because the original is one of the most imaginative and fun zombie movies of all time. That said, the first half of this film is actually a lot of fun. Especially the chase scenes after Julie’s reanimation. (Is it my imagination or is the convenience store scene very well written and presented?) Unfortunately, the second half of the movie just bogs down and doesn’t go anywhere. Although Julie’s transformation was pretty bad ass.

Long story short, ROTLD3 is a fun throwback time capsule to a more innocent time in the horror movie world. It’s not a great film, but there are certain aspects about it that are great. So, that said, if you got an open mind about such things then it’s worth checking out. Honestly, an expanded novelization of this story with be fantastic and super fun to read.

P.S. That old Ministry poster is awesome!

Part 1 - The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
Part 2 - Return of the Living Dead Part II (1988)
Part 4 - Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis (2005)
Part 5 - Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the Grave (2005)