The Yankees aren’t out of it yet…
- Yankees @ Dodgers (1-3), 5:08 pm, FOX
Seems appropriate to have a zombie movie for the day, as New York rises from the grave, just as Los Angeles seemed about to remove the head, or destroy the brain…
The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
Rating: B
Dir: Dan O’Bannon
Star: Clu Gulager, James Karen, Don Calfa, Thom Mathews
It’s a film that doesn’t hang around: similarly to Night, we’re only a few minutes in before we get our first zombie, and there isn’t much slack thereafter. Especially after the cemetery becomes infected, it’s a high-energy piece of work. The transformation of Freddy and Frank is excruciating in both its duration and the pain, setting a standard not matched by many subsequent films – the latter’s decision to commit suicide by self-cremation felt particularly poignant in the light of Karen’s demise this week. It was successful enough to have spawned four sequels of its own: while I’ve something of a soft-spot for the perversity of part III, none have come very close to matching the energy and droll wit of the original.