Return of the Living Dead 5

Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the Grave (2005)

Directed by: Ellory Elkayem
Written by: William Butler & Aaron Strongoni
Starring: Jenny Mollen, John Keefe, Cory Hardrict, Aimee-Lynn Chadwick, Cain Mihnea Manoliu, Maria Dinulescu, Catalin Paraschiv, Claudiu Bleont, Sorin Cocis, Peter Coyote

One of the many sequels to Return of the Living Dead and the only one my library has. I've seen the first one, so I've got a basic understanding of the 'rules' in this one - the canister is full of bad shit, the zombies can sort of talk. Although in the first one they were sort of indestructible.

Anyway, some teenagers find this canister of mysterious shit and do what any young person would do: turn it into drugs and sell it to all their friends before the rave. Yeah!

Meanwhile, two wild and crazy guys working for the [Romanian?] government are looking for the canister.

The movie is supposed to be set in some little town in the states. It was shot in Romania/Ukraine. I thought maybe it was, like, B.C. But no. It looks like half the actors are dubbed, and the ones that aren't sort of stick out...

The movie is cheap, moronic and borderline incompetent and yet somehow strangely entertaining. Go figure. After watching Resident Evil 3 (I watched these on the same night) which is slick, high budget, extremely serious and moronic, goofy zombie antics aren't too bad.

It does try a little too hard to be funny in spots (same problem with the first Return), and reminds me a lot of other shit-budget films even in tone (and sub-par acting), but at times is wacky enough to amuse me.

Also, the overwhelming crapiness does bring a smile to my face. This one has a zombie rat! Rats, dogs, crows, fish, what's next? I'm holding out for zombie gnats or something like that. Why couldn't zombie be carried by a mosquito?

The whole 'don't do drugs cos you'll turn into a zombie' thing is a little irritating (and yet so effective! It could happen! E could turn me into a zombie. I am such a chicken shit).

Also, the rave didn't really look that fun. Even before the zombies. Mind you, I'm afraid of people, so raves aren't really my favourite thing.

So I guess for fans of really bad zombie movies. Other people will probably just think it's a total waste of time. And, I guess, they'd be right. But I'm proud to waste my time. I'm not really using it for anything.

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