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)

GRANNY KRAMPUS (2024)

Six family members, each duller than the next, gather together at grandmother’s country estate for Christmas. Nothing happens for a very long time, then eventually a silly-looking troll critter in a Santa suit shows up and kills a few people in extremely boring ways. The End.

I will give it to the filmmakers, GRANNY KRAMPUS is a fucking awesome name for a movie! Unfortunately, that’s where all creativity ends. The main problem I have with this film is why does it have to be so goddamn dreary? You have two depressed sisters (whose parents recently died) visiting their estranged (and creepy) grandmother who lives with her invalid, brain dead brother in a poorly lit house. Then, the adult son (who is an alcoholic and gambling addict) visits with his socially awkward, “true horror podcast” loving son who appears to have the personality of an iceberg made out of frozen three-toed sloth urine. Once together, everybody argues and acts like dickheads. Merry Christmas!

I was wide awake while watching GRANNY KRAMPUS, but even still, I started zoning in and out during these long, pointless scenes of sad people talking. Then, when the Krampus kritter finally showed up I was honestly confused for a few seconds because I had completely forgotten that I was watching a horror movie! And that’s not a joke. It really did happen. I was like “What the fuck is that thing? Oh, yeah, this is a horror movie!”

Slow pace that never goes anywhere, boring monster, weak kills, very little blood, zero gore, zero nudity, zero cheerleaders, average acting (but I do have to commend everybody cause they had literally nothing to work with), shit script, okay camerawork, pretty house, a disappearing car driver, shadow of camera on actor’s shoulder. As a horror movie, GRANNY KRAMPUS is a disappointing nothing of a movie. But as therapy, it was kinda nice. Very quiet, lots of long boring scenes, no jump scares, no ups, no downs, no surprises. It was very chill and gave me lots of time to zone out. I appreciated that. As a matter of fact, as I'm writing this, Charlie is still sleeping on the sofa. Looks like he's been shot with a tranquilizer dart.

So, should you watch GRANNY KRAMPUS? Nah, it’s a 2/10 max and totally forgettable. But…THE JACK IN THE BOX: AWAKENING is a 4/10. So that’s twice as good, right? Similar British(?) country estate setting and a much better killer.  Yeah, I know all of the Jack in the Box movies suck, but I still have faith in the series.