Review of Return of the Living Dead III (1993) by Phil H — 04 Apr 2014

The third outing in this undead franchise is still just about hanging in there in terms of a decent horror film that will keep you hooked. This film unfortunately has taken the plunge into the deep dark realms of the straight to DVD which does give you a bad feeling. But fear not as despite the mawkish plot, bad acting and obvious reused sets the second half of the film gets back on track with plenty of zombie action.

The plot is the downfall really, its a bit wet and sloppy. A cringeworthy Romeo and Juliet type love story between two young teens and yet more toxic stuff. The young girl gets killed in a motorbike accident (typical reckless kids huh) and is reanimated by her boyfriend using this toxic stuff in a military base. Oh yeah the boys dad runs this military base where they are using the toxic stuff to animate the dead for dubious purposes..as you do.

It is important to note that this is the first film in the series that takes itself seriously and becomes more of an outright horror leaving out the comedy aspect, plus it moves away from the first two films and tries to be a stand alone feature. Whether that's the right way to go I'm not so sure as the horror comedy aspect was the best part of the original films but this still has some really nice ideas.

Makeup effects by the wizard Steve Johnson saves this film from the abyss of crapola with some of the best creepy looking undead makeup in the whole franchise. His dark imagination combined with the high gross-out factor is uber cool as Johnson really gets to create anything he can think of. I admittedly did like the kinky 'Hellraiser-esque/fetish' look for the young undead female teen. Yeah call me a pervert but there's clearly a nice BDSM vibe going on there which is sick yet alluring at the same time.

Think of 'Evil Dead: Army of Darkness' but even more twisted and gruesome and you will get an idea of what the crazy undead hordes look like. In short this film isn't great up until the last 30min or so, then everything breaks loose and kicks ass nicely.