The Return of the Living Dead

Synopsis: When a bumbling pair of employees at a medical supply warehouse accidentally release a deadly gas into the air, the vapors cause the dead to re-animate as they go on a rampage through Louisville, Kentucky seeking their favorite food, brains.
Genre: Comedy, Horror
Director(s): Dan O'Bannon
Production: HBO Video
  4 nominations.
 
IMDB:
7.4
Rotten Tomatoes:
91%
R
Year:
1985
91 min
2,190 Views


Hey, Frank! Let's wrap it up and go home.

What do you say?

I got another hour's work to do.

The kid'll stay, and I'll show him the ropes.

Okay. Lock up for me before you go?

Fourth of July weekend, buddy boy.

Got to move.

Yeah. You have a nice Fourth,

and I'll see you Sunday at the barbecue.

You'd better believe it.

I'll be there with bells on.

Kid, I wanna tell you something,

and I mean this sincerely.

No matter what happens,

don't name it after me.

Take it easy, Frank.

That Burt's a joker.

- Freddy, follow me and learn something.

- Okay.

We got an order here from

the St. Louis University Medical School.

They want two adult female skeletons

with perfect teeth.

That's a 2-AF-PT.

So you come over here to the "A" section.

That's "A" for adult, see?

Then that's divided up into two sections.

That's divided into the "M" for male

and the "F" for...

- Female.

- Good boy. Now the "PT."

Suppose you think that's "pretty tough."

But no, that's...

- Perfect teeth.

- Very good.

Now you get some excelsior over there

and lay it in that crate.

Make a nice little beddy-bye

for this little lady.

Okay.

Good work. We want her to be comfortable.

Now help me get her in. Grab her legs.

Okay.

Now you get some of that

Styrofoam popcorn, spread it all around.

Don't be stingy.

Uncle Burt's paying for this.

More, Freddy. Okay, that's fine.

Now spread it around. That's right.

- You're doing very nice work.

- Thanks.

You'll be fine in the warehouse business.

- Where do we get all these skeletons?

- They come from India.

- India?

- International treaty.

All skeletons come from India.

- No kidding. How come?

- How the hell do I know?

The important question is, where do they

get all the skeletons with perfect teeth?

I'm going to ask you a serious question.

How many people you know die...

with a beautiful, perfect

set of choppers in their puss?

Nobody I can think of.

No. I think there's a skeleton farm

over in India.

Jesus!

Come on, kid. Follow your uncle here.

Here we go. I don't have to tell you

what these are for.

Here we've got the prosthetic devices,

all around here.

- Look under there. Wheelchairs.

- Right. These are great.

Here's something you don't see very often.

You're a privileged person.

These are split dogs

for veterinarian schools.

- We get a lot of orders for split dogs.

- That's really rad.

Don't fool around, you're learning.

Over here, Freddy,

is where we keep the fresh cadavers.

We sell these to medical schools

and to the US Army for ballistic tests.

Say hello.

We usually got more inventory than this...

but we're expecting a shipment on Monday.

How many bodies are in here usually?

You don't want to be overstocked.

Like the restaurant business...

you don't want your inventory

to lose its freshness.

Tell you what I'll do, kid. Teach you

how to fill out these shipping forms.

Look alive.

- We gonna party tonight or what?

- We are gonna party.

- Where we gonna party?

- I don't know. Somewhere.

We can go to the park.

We can't. The cops will

shoot us if we go back to the park.

- I ain't in no mood to die tonight.

- I like death.

- I like death with sex. And you, Casey?

- Yeah, so f*** off and die.

When we gonna party tonight, Tina?

That'd be rad, but I have to meet Freddy

when he's done work.

- Where you supposed to meet him?

- At this medical supply warehouse.

No, he got a job? What a dick.

Sh*t, why didn't you say so?

Why don't we all go pick Freddy up?

He always knows

where there's a place to party.

Frank?

Yeah, kid?

What's the weirdest thing

you ever saw in here?

I have seen weird things come,

and I have seen weird things go.

But the weirdest thing I ever saw

just had to cap it all.

Yeah? What's that?

Let me ask you a question, kid.

Did you see that movie

Night of the Living Dead?

That's the one where the corpses

start eating the people, right?

Sure. What about it?

Did you know that movie

was based on a true case?

Come on, you're shitting me, right?

I've never been more serious in my life.

That's not possible. They showed

zombies taking over the world.

They changed it all around.

What really happened was...

back in 1969, in Pittsburgh,

at the VA hospital...

there was a chemical spill...

and all that stuff leaked down

into the morgue...

and it made all the dead bodies

jump around as though it was alive.

- What chemical?

- 245-Trioxin, it's called.

It was to spray on marijuana or something.

And the Darrow Chemical Company

was trying to develop it for the army.

And they told

the guy who made the movie...

that if he told the true story,

they'd just sue his ass off.

So he changed all the facts around.

What really happened?

They closed it all down...

and the army shipped

all that contaminated dirt...

and all those dead bodies out.

And they kept it a secret.

How come you know about it?

A typical army f***-up.

The transportation department got

the orders crossed...

and they shipped those bodies here...

instead of to the Darrow Chemical Company.

Hello?

Hi, honey.

No, I'll be home in about an hour.

You keep the pot roast hot, okay?

Sure, I love you too, honey.

Yeah. Kiss, kiss.

Wanna see them?

- See them?

- The corpses.

What are you talking about?

- They're down in the basement.

- No.

- Come on.

- No way.

Mind the third step. It's a b*tch.

They just brought the bodies here

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Dan O'Bannon

Daniel Thomas "Dan" O'Bannon (September 30, 1946 – December 17, 2009) was an American film screenwriter, director, visual effects supervisor, and occasional actor, usually in the science fiction and horror genres.O'Bannon is best known for having written the screenplay for Alien, adapted from a story he wrote with Ronald Shusett. He also contributed computer animation to Star Wars, worked on cult classics such as Dark Star, Heavy Metal, and Total Recall, and wrote and directed the horror comedy The Return of the Living Dead. more…

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Submitted on August 05, 2018

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