Return of the Living Dead 5: Rave to the Grave (2005)

Return of the Living Dead 4 and 5 were filmed back to back, and so, after having my expectations raised by the joyousness of Necropolis, I was more than prepared to love this movie. Unfortunately, Rave to the Grave isn't quite as good as its predecessor... but it is lots of fun nonetheless.

The survivors of Necropolis are back, and so are the barrel zombies. The kids have made new friends, and so have the barrels: the line up this time includes a new hot girl, a new drug dealer, and a completely irritating DJ, as well as two brilliantly inept Russians hoping to retrieve the zombie barrels in order to be rewarded with "a crate of Kristal and a trip to EuroDisney." The set up this time does away with government officials: somehow, one of the kids has discovered that the gooey contents of the zombie barrels have very similar properties to ecstasy, and managed to extract it and package it in pill form. With a Hallowe'en rave looming on the horizon, it's not hard to see what'll happen... and sure enough, before long everyone's popping "Z" and turning into zombies.

The kids who managed to live through Necropolis must have had some kind of bump on the head, because they take a startlingly long time to realise what's going on, even when confronted with chalky-faced former friends yelling "braaaaains!" at them. Once they do, though, some of the most inventive fight scenes ever committed to film ensue. As with Necropolis, the dialogue is funny, the kids spirited, and the action fast-paced. It's difficult to put a finger on quite what's missing (except, maybe, the initial expectation that the film will be terrible) and Rave to the Grave is certainly a decent addition to zombie canon.

That image of the gooey zombie standing on the edge of the road holding a crayoned sign reading "Rave or bust" (with some of the letters reversed) is pretty damned iconic-looking, too.

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Return of the Living Dead 4: Necropolis (2005)

After the first few disappointing entries in this series comes the payoff, for anyone who's doggedly stuck with it: Necropolis is a zombie movie the way a zombie movie should be.

Despite a couple of pop-culture references, this film could have been made in the 80s; it's hard to believe that it was only shot in 2005. The obligatory teenaged leads all look and act like their decades-ago counterparts, and there's just something about the look of the movie that makes it just not quite feel like it was made in the 21st century. But that certainly isn't a criticism. Neither is it a criticism to point out that this film completely does away with the conventions of the earlier movies: in Necropolis, zombies don't run, they shuffle; and shooting them in the head works.

Though these qualities are well-worn and have been used by countless movies over the years, not including them in your zombies is like making a vampire movie where the vampires don't suck blood. They're just necessary.

There are other references to earlier instalments in the franchise, though; notably the "send more security guards!" line. But it's funny enough by itself not to need to be backed up by knowledge of the films that went before it.

Plotwise, Necropolis isn't hugely innovative, either: the zombies in barrels are back, and like in Return of the Living Dead 3, a shadowy government initiative is hell-bent on using the reanimating properties of the zombie gas to create an unbeatable army of zombified soldiers. Like in Return of the Living Dead, a motorcycle crash results in one of the teens being hauled off to be zombified; and like in every zombie movie ever made, the zombies get loose and wreck havoc. But it's fun! Actually, it's very fun; funny, well-paced, and packed with more splatter than a Saturday morning kid's show.

And the characters work; they're not just lifeless stereotypes. The hot girl, rather than just being an object of lust for the male lead, gets to be actually useful and intelligent, not to mention calm in a crisis, and saves the day more than once; the geeky guy isn't just a geek; the male lead himself isn't just a whiny idiot, but actually takes responsibility for his own actions and those of others...

I think it's pretty clear that I really enjoyed this movie. Lately there's been a rash of really, really, hideously poor movies being released, and I would never, in a million years, have expected that any film with "4" in the title would be able to restore my faith in the genre, but it has. Ultimately, the charm of this movie is that it's a proper zombie movie, made with due care and attention, without any unnecessary post-modern faffing about. Well played.

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Return of the Living Dead 3 (1993)

When an idiotic teenager's attempt to run away from home ends in the death of his girlfriend, he ill-advisedly brings her back to life. And what happens is exactly what you'd expect, really, except that she decides the way to stop herself wanting to eat people is to thrust bits of metal haphazardly through her flesh.

Um.

DVD hasn't been kind to this movie; the actors and the special effects both suffer from an increased ability to actually see them, and overall it's just kind of messy.

The zombies are still running, too, which is never a good sign. Neither is desperately hoping that the lead character will get bitten and killed, just because you hate him so much. Next!

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Return of the Living Dead (1985)

Taking a punk-rock approach to zombies, Return of the Living Dead tries valiantly to combine horror and comedy with, well, variable results.

Supposedly, this is a follow-on from Night of the Living Dead, though the two films could hardly be more different. Barrels of gas are being kept in a basement, and when they're opened, hideously decayed zombies tumble out and wreck havoc. Bafflingly, the gas the zombies are kept in causes anything it comes into contact with to turn into a zombie: from living human beings to preserved half-dogs. Quite why the barrel zombies stay sedated and immobile inside the barrels with this stuff is a mystery, but it's probably not worth worrying about.

Across the street from the zombie outbreak is a morgue. Which is clearly a recipe for disaster - while it initially seems like a good idea to incinerate the zombie parts, it soon becomes clear that this is a horribly bad plan as the zombie ash turns into acid rain and infects a group of punk teenagers partying in the graveyard. And that's where the real havoc begins.

On the bright side, zombie gas is a pretty interesting way to create zombies. And the acid rain is a brilliant touch. But the zombies themselves are weird, and not in a good way. Gone are the shambling, rotting, moaning ghouls of Night of the Living Dead, and in their place are sprinting maniacs with a wicked sense of humour. ("Send more paramedics" is a great line, but it's not worth sitting through talking zombies for.)

See, zombies should be scary because there are lots of them, and they don't die easily. Not because they can chase you down and eat you. How are human beings ever supposed to fight back when they're fighting supernatural marathon runners?

Well, the film's answer is a blatant bit of Cold War paranoia, so let's leave that at that.

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