Return of the Living Dead Part II

As is tradition, while I may not have seen the OG classic 80's horror movie, I did see it's cheesy sequel, and I saw it way too young. So young in fact, that my memories are more feelings about the movie, instead of any actual recollection of the movie itself. Mainly, I remember this movie scaring the bejesus out of me. After this re-watch, while certainly watchable enough in its own right, seeing just how much of a comedy the movie was trying to be, I feel guilty for being such a scaredy cat.

The RotLD sequel that took all the camp humour from the first film and just ran with it dropping all the horror along the way. Cut a few seconds out and you have a PG kids movie. I don’t know if there’s too much or too little James Karen in peril schtick in this.

Deliciously bad, but still charming as hell. For some reason, it made me reminisce about Nickelodeon's Salute Your Shorts! and Pete & Pete; like this is a super gory horror version of Saturday morning YA entertainment. The Kid VS Zombie Bully Kid (= child actor rams a screwdriver into Zombie Bully Kid's mouth before frying his face off) is... so refreshing.

O'Bannon pulled off an exceedingly rare feat w/ the first movie: making over-the-top absurdity that can easily be mistaken for so-bad-its-good camp (or just bad filmmaking) into an entertaining, surprising AND compelling film. Although the first 1/2 hour here offers an interesting enough variation on the set up of the first film, the rest leans too heavily on the parody & 2 actors literally rehashing their mugging and slapstick results in a ton of groanworthy jokes & increasingly sloppy plot.

Weak sequel is essentially a retread of the original except with none of the charm or cinematic ingenuity. Considering that two of the main actors return from the previous installment to give god awful performances, the blame largely lies in the hands of the director, who ramps up the camp indiscriminately, much to the detriment of the overall film.

I guess its fairly accurate to real life in that a zombie apocalypse would just be constant screaming and bad John Carpenter-lite music.

With it's decision to go all campy instead of half horror half camp of the original, this sometimes has the odd feeling of a violent children's movie.

They throw brains out of the back of a truck to lure the zombies to their second death so it probably deserves a metal.

It has fun moments in the perfect 80s suburb with beep-boopy music and colorful lurching zombies, stretches of a minute or two at a time where it's like a movie version of Zombies Ate My Neighbors, but they don't last and overall it's a cocktail of unfunny dialogue and hammy repetition of the first film.

Disappointing and shitty sequel to the first one. What made the first good was that it didn't play everything up with camp and kept a certain amount of creepiness and uncertainty. This on the other hand was a retread with none of the charm.

Keeps rolling where the first RotLD left off. Wacky and gory. Shouldn't be missed.

Sequel to the original zombie comedy ramps up the silliness factor and neuters the zombies to the point where they're not really scary, they're just fodder for more bad jokes. It's still pretty fun watching crap actors scream all their dialog at each other, and the line "Take that damn screwdriver outta my head" was an oft repeated gem around my house when I was younger. Good, but I like the original juuuust a bit more.

Poor compared to the first Return. Sacrifices all attempts at scares in favor of camp that was sometimes (but not constantly) present in the original.

Not as good as the first, but still wickedly entertaining and a worthy successor. "Return of the Living Dead" should have twenty more movies like this, but sadly there are not.

It's a carbon copy of the first one in more ways than one, which makes it less interesting and less fun to watch. The campy performances are fun, but they get annoying at times. The romance subplot wound up being utterly pointless. The comedy feels a little forced at several points, and not much of it is funny. It isn't an awful movie, but it pales in comparison to the original and other horror/comedies like it.

Not even close to the original horror comedy classic. Cut rate productions and poor attempts at humor.

kinda lame but sort of entertaining

This pales in comparison to the first movie, but I prefer it over the third one. Works mostly as a goofy horror movie, does have a few great zombie moments, thankfully doesn't overstay it's welcome too much.

Much funnier than original, better budget, but GOD! I cannot get over how awful the acting is! Had they dialed down the overacting even a tad, this would have been a way better film.

Annoying as hell. Unlike the original, where the characters behaved somewhat like regular people, here everyone acts retarded (specially the older guy). The child actor is atrocious.

Part 1 is way better

This totally unnecessary sequel plays closer to a remake. Slickly made but *really* lame; the Michael Jackson throwaway gag near the end provides the sole laugh.

Realmente não chega aos pés do primeiro, mas esse tem a desculpa de não ter o dedo do gênio do horror e ficção científica Dan O'Bannon, mas mesmo assim ainda para em pé por ser um divertido terrir dos anos 80. Darkflix TV.

The stunt of using the same cast as the first while playing different characters was the best thing about this movie. I remember liking it better in the past. Kids in horror movies should all die.

Poor sequel.

Casting director: Why should I hire you? Actor: I have many years of experience, a fantastic range and... Casting director: Can you scream and shout? Actor: Erm, yeah, sure. Why? Casting director: What about crying? Actor: Can I cry? Yes, I have been known... Casting director: You're hired.

Tasteless, cheesy, and over the top. Not a single line of dialog is spoken in a normal tone of voice; the actors spend the entire movie yelling at each other and screaming like morons. But damn it if I didn't get a kick out of this mess of a movie. It hits that level of absurdity that makes a lot of bad horror films from the 80s tolerable, even enjoyable.

Cheap, fun, horror.