Review of Return of the Living Dead III (1993) by Sol H — 26 Oct 2005

Return of the Living Dead 3.

Starring: Melinda Clarke.

Director: Brian Yunza.

I'll keep the summary short, because I think we all know the basics here. In "Retrn of the Living Dead 3," a pair of teens end up zombified due to the military experiments being conducted upon the flesh-eating zombies from the other "Dead" movies (be they "Night," "Dawn," "Shaun," or whichever). Will their love survive their change in metabolic status and deitary needs?

"Return of the Living Dead 2" remains one of my favourite horror comedies. It's a rare treat when a movie manages to spoof its genre and itself while keeping the characters believable and the story from degrading into just an excuse for gags.

I knew that "Return of the Living Dead 3" was a more "serious" zombie flick, and I thought it might be an interesting twist on this series--RoLD1 was semi-serious, RoLD2 was over-the-top comedy, and RoLD3 sounded like it was going to get back to basics. It's too bad the writers and directors of this film mistook "serious" for "flat and uninspired.".

"Return of the Living Dead 3" could have been a twisted version of "Romeo and Juliet," in addition to a creepy zombie flick, but it fails to be either of those. The film has most the hallmarks of the two previous flicks, but virtually none of the flaire. There is a sense that most of the cast are just going through motions. The acting is mostly weak, the characters are mostly uninteresting, the story is painfully predicatable, and all of these add up to a movie that most viewers simply would be bored watching. (I know I was!).

There are two things that are worthwhile in this film: The make-up work is quite nice in most cases, and Melinda Clarke's performance as a reluctant brain-eater is the only decent acting job in the film. Her performance is moving at times and humourous at others. Clarke gets a Tomato all by herself. RoLD3 *could* have been a chilling and even at times touching (something rare in any sort of film featuring cannibalistic zombies!) film, but instead it's just another fifth-rate B movie for the scrap pile, despite Melinda Clarke's stand-out performance.