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)

THE SADNESS (2021)

Taipei, Taiwan. Not a lot of story up in this one. A dude drops his girlfriend off at the train station (so she can go to work) and while he’s heading back home…a full on zombie apocalypse happens. And not with the older style shuffling zombies either, but the mean-spirited, Brian Keene-style rape zombies that want nothing more than to cut you open and fuck your bleeding wounds. So now, the rest of the movie is our two heroes trying to get back to each other while getting the shit kicked out of them each step of the way. Which, oddly enough, is pretty much the same story as the 2016 zombie outbreak movie SEOUL STATION.

I enjoyed THE SADNESS, but it just wasn’t violent enough and the story / character development / world building was almost non-existent. I wanted to like the two main characters, but with almost no information given about them, I didn’t give much of a shit about what happened to them. Especially since both of them made some dumb decisions and the ending was telegraphed midway through the film. That said, it’s still worth watching and has a few awesome moments (the subway car bloodbath and the old lady in the cafe were my favorites). I just wanted more! Hopefully there's a Part 2 and it will go completely insane.

Here's some zombie nudity for you weirdos.

How considerate of the zombies to use a bendy baseball bat.