Michael_Elliott Return of the Living Dead Part II (1988)** (out of 4) Jesse Wilson (Michael Kenworthy) and a couple friends stumble across a container, which contains the infamous gas that causes the dead to return to life. Later that night the friends accidentally release the gas and the zombies come looking for brains.RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD PART II was the first horror film I ever watched on the big screen back when I was eight years old. At the time I remember liking the film because I could relate to the Jesse character and it was fun pretending that I was him battling all these zombies. With that said, even at that time I knew this sequel was a major step back from the original film and as I've gotten older I've enjoyed this film less and less.The film tries really hard to capture the mood and spirit of the original and that includes paying homage to several of the characters in the original include Tar Man, Jr. showing up here. We've also got James Karen and Thom Matthews returning but this time playing grave robbers who wind up battling zombies again. The two actors have that chemistry that they did in the first picture but it just isn't as fresh or original here. Even the zombies here are pretty bland as there just aren't too many memorable ones.The film remains slightly entertaining because you do like the characters and there are a couple funny moments scattered throughout the picture. There's a lot more humor here than in the first movie but the problem is that a lot of it doesn't work. Another problem is that there isn't nearly enough zombie action and even the gore level is pretty low. I've always thought this here played like a cleaned up version of the original and it just doesn't have that dark tone that it needed.RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD PART II has some minor entertainment scattered throughout but certainly not enough to keep it moving at a good pace.

TheLittleSongbird The first Return of the Living Dead was and still is a hugely enjoyable film, that's clever, immensely fun and very scary, and is and always will be the best of the five films in this particular series, the only film to be above good standard. This first sequel is nowhere near as good, but it's passable stuff and is one of the better sequels in the series (certainly much better than the horrendous Necropolis and Rave to the Grave).Visually, Return of the Living Dead Part II is not a stunner but it hardly looks amateurish either. It's shot with style, the lighting does evoke a spooky atmosphere and the effects are above average. The soundtrack is haunting and has a charming 80s feel, while not quite being as good as that of the original it doesn't date the film like it did with Necropolis and Rave to the Grave. James Karen and Thom Andrews return, and do great jobs carrying the film, Karen in particular is hysterical. The zombies are at least well-utilised, and while not very threatening at least exude some personality.On the other hand, while the production values are mostly good the zombie make-up is very much mixed, some of it is okay (while never on the same level of the make-up in the first film, it's never as pathetic as Rave to the Grave) but at other times the zombies look like Thriller-rejects. There is a lot of bad acting here in a film where Karen and Andrews give the only good performances, Suzanne Snyder is particularly annoying as Brenda, one of the series' most obnoxious characters. The characters in general here are very bland, and there's little engaging or endearing about them. The direction is sometimes efficient but sometimes rather languid, while the story is basically just a very predictable and sometimes repetitive re-hash of the first film's but with few of the ingredients that made its predecessor work so well. The film's biggest problem is that it has more emphasis on comedy than scares, this may not seem a problem at first but unfortunately the original achieved a much better balance between comedy and scares whereas this doesn't do very well with either. Scares are barely there in fact and the gore gets tiresome, and worse the comedy is incredibly strained in places with some of the better (if not by much) moments being completely unintentional.In conclusion, passable first sequel but its predecessor is so much better. 5/10 Bethany Cox

bazmitch23 They pretty much copy a lot of things from the first movie. We have Thom Mathews and James Karen playing the exact same characters (only with different names), they get infected and recite lines from the first movies.There's even a scene where Thom's character attacks his girlfriend in a church. Just like the flippin' first movie!Another thing I hated about this film was that half and hour into the film when all Hell breaks loose, we have the main characters SCREAMING and SCREAMING and SCREAMING and SCREAMING and SCREAMING! OH SHUT UP! As if Americans weren't loud and annoying already!The worst character in the film is Brenda. She whines and complains about EVERYTHING! And she's a ginger!The zombie make up is dreadful. None of them look convincing. The make up effects in the first movie weren't the greatest, but they were better looking than the ones in this film.And the movie was just simply boring and uninteresting. The first movie was real campy fun. This one tries to follow the formula, but fails.And the whole electrocuting the zombies to kill them at the end was just stupid. Also, the first movie showed us that you couldn't kill the zombies at all.I've watched the documentary on the Return of the Living Dead Blu-ray, which was more entertaining than this film. And everyone said that the script was lousy and the writer/director didn't give a crap about the film what so ever and only made this film for the dough. And I thought Michael Bay didn't care.Overall, just a boring, uninteresting sequel that decays just like the living dead. I can see why this only got a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes.And yes, the Michael Jackson zombie was just stupid. Even the writer/director didn't want to film it.

The_Film_Cricket I have a modest affection for a movie like this. The script is as dumb as a box of rocks but the movie sets out to be a stupid horror comedy and successfully stays the course. The title identifies it as a sequel to 'The Return of the Living Dead', one of my all-time favorite guilty pleasures. This movie doesn't rise to be it's equal but I give it points for trying.The story is pretty much in the title but I'll go into it as much as I can. In a small community a couple of kids start playing with a large metal drum that fell off of a military truck next to the town cemetery. Out of the drum pours a strange gas, which seeps into the ground and soon living dead rise and go looking for human brains. You can pretty well guess the rest.The characters are pretty cartoonish. We meet: the kid who woke the dead, his sister, a cable installer and my favorite, a fun-loving graverobber (played by the always dependable James Karen), his reluctant assistant, and a jovial doctor. Karen breaks open crypts at the mausoleum and steals their jewelry having fun the whole way.The movie seems less inspired by George Romero's 'Night of the Living Dead' and more by Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' video (to which there is a nod). The living dead are all rotting decay and dripping flesh stumbling around like drunks at a frat party (I loved the scene where twenty of them pile into a convertible and zoom around town looking for brains.Look, this is not great cinema. I love serious films; in fact I thrive on them. But once in a while I like a little junk food cinema. This is one of those horror films that doesn't take itself seriously and doesn't really even try to be a good movie. ROTLDP2 is a good time killer and never pretends to be anything else.