Leofwine_draca A few moderately decent special effects are probably the best thing on offer in this lacklustre sequel to the classic comedy/horror yarn, in which the non-existent plot serves to vainly attempt to recapture the highlights from the original. For no explainable reason, the stalwart tag-team of James Karen and Thom Mathews are also brought back from the first film, playing different characters, but exactly the same thing happens to them here as it does in the original! Aside from the overwhelming déjà vu, this is a bigger-scope but lacking film, with the overdone comedy a real bore most of the time. Although there are a fair few macabre gags that pay off (the Michael Jackson homage, the severed head scenes, the disintegrating zombies) for the most part this is an irritating film that contains nothing memorable like the original. Even the music is worse.It's a bog-standard '80s comic horror romp with little brain and even less imagination on offer. The effects of the zombies are decent but the overacting – done by the entire cast now and not just Karen and Mathews – is a really big mistake. In fact there is not one straight character in the film. Just loads of bland teenagers, an annoyingly smart kid, and other extraneous folk who shout and scream a lot. It's pretty embarrassing really. The plot is predictable, the casting instantly forgettable (all long forgotten today, aside from a brief turn by X-FILES star Mitch Pileggi), the jokes just keep getting dumber and dumber. Ignore the bigger budget and heightened effects, the first film in this series is still the one to look out for.

GL84 Joining up with friends in a cemetery, a kid's discovery of a long-lost barrel of military-test chemicals finds that the release of the chemicals brings the dead to life and stalking their home-town forcing them to hold off the creatures as they find a way of stopping them.This here was a pretty descent sequel with some fun stuff about it. Among the better features here is the really exciting and enjoyable opening here, which features some nice action and some creepy visuals together for a fun time here as the sprawl through the cemetery and being chased by the bullies where he gets backed inside the mausoleum where he encounters the dead bodies in their caskets and leads into the fantastic resurrection scenes as the billowing cloud slowly works out from the drainage pipe into the cemetery where the gnarled hands break free from the heaving earth in the middle of the pouring rain. The later scene where he confronts the tar-man in the tunnel before the bigger mass-grave exhumation filled with hilarious gags and cheesy music makes for a great blend of suspense and cheesy action, which leads nicely into the race to get out of the cemetery as the swarming hordes of zombies overrun the graveyard in a really enjoyable time here. Even the suburbia scenes here are quite fun with them initially driving around and meeting with the two, the house attack which leads to their hilarious escape attempts and finally sneaking through the neighborhood to escape in the car which has some really fun and enjoyable moments here. Likewise, the film has a really enjoyable and exciting finale here with the soldiers confronting the zombies in a massive shootout before they begin chasing the group through the streets in several different attack scenes while they lead the creatures to the power-plant which has some fantastic action in the mass swarming on the truck that locks them inside, the eventual escape and chasing around the facility both inside the truck and out on foot before utilizing a comically cheesy yet oddly creative and effective disposal method of the zombies that really ends this on a high note. Along with the great zombie make-up and fun cheese, these here make for a really fun time here against the film's few flaws. The film's main problem here is the convoluted and clumsy mid-section here, built entirely around the absolutely tired ploy of nobody believing anything he says here without any reason why which continually leads them into encounters with the zombies when a fair bit of smartness would've prevented endless running around. That would've avoided the time-wasting scenes in the hospital, dealing with the infected friends and their adventures through town which are just unnecessary here and ruin the flow of the film. The other problem here is the rather overbearing sense of cheese here from the jokes, the goofy situations and non-threatening nature of the zombies in their actions here. While it makes the film fun, this one does come off more of a cheesy version of the genre.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Language, children-in-jeopardy and questionable child activities.

utgard14 Much-hated sequel to the '80s classic Return of the Living Dead is better than most people give it credit for being. It's not on the level of the first movie but it's still a fun and enjoyable horror-comedy. The plot is pretty much irrelevant but here goes: a container with a zombie in it falls off the back of an army truck. Some kids mess with it and release a toxic gas that reanimates the dead.James Karen and Thom Mathews return, playing different characters than in the last movie. They're a treat to watch, just like last time. Karen is especially funny and gets many of the movie's best lines. The main part this time around is a kid played by Michael Kenworthy. He's pretty good in what appears to have been his biggest role. The rest of the cast is fine. It's a fun movie that doesn't take itself seriously at all. I'm surprised it's hated as much as it is but the first movie was terrific so any sequel to it was bound to fall up short by comparison. Could've been a lot worse, though.

Boba_Fett1138 Confession time; I never was really fond of the first "The Return of the Living Dead" in the first place. I know I'm a minority on this but the humor was very childish and simplistic to me, as was the script, while the movie itself seemed to think that it was being a very clever one. Can't really say they improved any of this in this first sequel.I can see how this movie got mostly catered toward teenagers at the time and perhaps I would had liked this and the first movie better if I had grown up with it in the '80's. This is a problem I often have with popular '80's movies that are made for youngsters; I just don't get what's the appeal of them. This is of course not the case with just any movie but this does seem often the case with movies that are being regarded as cult-classics now days.But luckily I'm not all on my own this time. Generally speaking "Return of the Living Dead Part II" is not a very well liked movie, which does seem a bit surprising to me, since I just can't really see how this movie is worse than the original. As a matter of fact; I honestly liked this movie a bit better than the first one, simply because I didn't felt as annoyed with it this time.It's obviously not a great movie. It takes a far too simplistic and cliché ridden approach with things for that. The story is pretty much non-existent. Things just happen in this movie and most stuff seems very random. It doesn't follow a clear main plot line, which makes it feel like this movie is just going on and going on forever, even though the movie in fact is only about 85 minutes short. I was just pretty much fed up with all of it about an hour in already. I just couldn't care less about anything that was happening and I never got into any of the characters. I don't even remember any of their names and was actually more annoyed by most of them. The little kid is annoying (I hate it when they don't let children act like real children) but so was the screaming and shouting girl, as well as the old guy who was supposed to be funny but just never really made me laugh.The effects are also only half successful in this. At times all of the zombie and gore effects are fantastic and quite convincing looking, while at others it's just way too fake. It's very uneven, just like the entire movie basically.It's harmless and silly enough to still entertaining plenty of people I guess, just don't mistake it for a good movie as well.5/10 http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/