Capital Celluloid 2012 - Day 140: Sat May 19

Return of the Living Dead (O'Bannon, 1984): Rio Cinema, 11.30pm

This screening is presented by the marvellous Cigarette Burns team. You can find out more about them and this evening's entertainment at their Facebook page and their website.

Here is their introduction to this evening's entertainment:
A special preview screening of Second Sight's upcoming HD release of the classic punk rock zombie flick.

Though it is in fact not Night, Dawn or even Day, but the glorious Return of the Living Dead that Cigarette Burns are delighted to present to you. A new hi def remaster of Dan O’Bannon’s classic 1985 zombiethon, starring James Karen and queen of scream, Linnea Quigley.

Flawlessly stylish, with mischievously witty dialogue, dazzling special effects, and one hell of a bitching soundtrack featuring The Cramps, The Damned and Roky Erickson, The Return of the Living Dead is a delight from beginning to climatic end.


Time Out review:'Any film which features a dead, bald and very hungry punk lurching towards the camera screaming 'More Brains!' gets my vote. Directed by O'Bannon courtesy of George Romero, this is an energetic cross-referencing of genre: not just a horror movie, but a comic apocalyptic zombie horror movie. O'Bannon has his cake, eats it, and then throws it up in the face of the audience. Warehousemen unwittingly release a zombie interred by the CIA (of course) along with a nifty gas which ensures that local graveyards are bursting at the seams with brain-peckish corpses. Most of the film froths and bubbles merrily: there is a deeply artistic sequence where a punkette dances naked on a tombstone before being transformed into a zombie, and another moving bit where para-meds get their heads munched.' Richard Rayner
Here is the trailer.

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