Most of us know the 1990s are kind of a hit or miss and mostly miss decade of horror. It’s strange looking back on many of these 90s movies that I would think was terrible to later think, “hey, this is not as bad as I remember.” But that isn’t what makes a movie underrated.
The original Return of the Living Dead has become kind of a legendary fan favorite horror film, I love it. The second film was lackluster and kind of follows a similar pattern, while casting two of the main characters in essentially the same role in the 1985 film. But the third movie, well Return of the Living Dead 3 is something completely different, may not be better, but different.
Synopsis:
Having recently witnessed the horrific results of a top secret project to bring the dead back to life, a distraught youth performs the operation on his girlfriend after she’s killed in a motorcycle accident.
The opening sets up the military is trying to use 245 Trioxin in hopes to use Zombies in combat. Colonel Reynolds son Curt steals his key card to get in the lab. I find this weird, especially due to the fact Curt seems to have been egged on by his…girlfriend, Julie(Melinda Clarke). Julie is kind of messed up, has a morbid obsession with this project and re-animation of the dead. Even after they have sex, she is immediately thinking about it, I wonder if if turned her on. Seems like it.
Later Curt and his father argue about leaving the area and Curt is in love with Julie who seems to be a complete psychopath, but hey, it’s Melinda Clarke and she is super hot, sometimes the hot ones are psychopaths, echoes my recent dating history. Curt and Julie run away together but Julie is rubbing Curts dick while he is driving the motorcycle and eventually causing an accident where Julie dies. Curt, a man of action takes her back to the lab to re-animate her using 245 Trioxin, great idea.
Julie and Curt try to escape and we finally get this film “Tarman”. Less of a Tarman and just a nasty Trioxin zombie that looks just, well messed up and eventually it’s skin gets split and looks even cooler.
Julie is now dead and this is where the movie gets awesome. They run into some kind of little street gang, Julie bites a dude and Curt and Julie escape the police to the sewers and she tries to kill herself. This hunger she has in increasing, but she finds pain takes the hunger away. The “Riverman” helps them, then Julie goes all out sexy badass Zombie rocker chick, I mean seriously.
The gang tracks them down and Julie goes to town killing the gang in her bloodlust for brains and to simply feed. When the military catches up to them, Curt frees Julie from their clutches with the aid of the “Riverman” who is now an unstoppable zombie in an exoskeleton. Colonel Reynolds tries to help his son, but it’s too late and Curt stays behind with Julie.
Yeah, Return of the Living Dead 3 is pretty badass and 100% the second best of the five movies. I think it’s kind of a batshit crazy movie, which I love. Melinda Clarke is so good in the movie, at times she is over the top, but I think for this movie it makes sense. When we meet her she shows how kind of, crazy she is and her progression into death makes sense why she does what she does to herself, “The pain…the pain keeps the hunger away…” For a short time anyway. When the bloodlust begins, it is on!
Outside of the movie and Melinda Clarke’s look and performance, you’ve gotta applaud the effects team. The zombie, which are few, look excellent. We get some really inventive Zombies here. One of them has his head somewhat ripped off by Julie and his spine is exposed and it’s so weird looking, but awesome. Not to mention the “Tarman” looks awesome…But nothing and I mean nothing beats Julie. She is scary, sexy and deadly as fuck.
Thanks for checking this out, I love this movie. While it’s not great, it is a fun movie and nothing like most Zombie movies which generally focus on survivors dealing with an outbreak. No, this is way different and we see things from Julie’s perspective and she is seemingly more alive that any Zombie from and Zombie movie which is cool to see things from her point of view. I admit it’s not great, but if you don’t have fun watching Return of the Living Dead 3, you’re crazy, it’s fun. Julie and her point of view are the things that make this movie underrated.
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