Return Of The Living Dead Blu-ray Review
Dan O’Bannon directed this 80’s horror comedy and ended up with a cult classic on his hands that has really stood the test of time. This is the stuff that really gets practical effects horror fans juices flowing.
Yes it is zombie outbreak time again. But instead of social satire we get a fairly broad comedy in terms of dialogue as well as the visual gags. But the silliness is fairly restrained without every letting this fall into spoof territory. The chills and spills in the film are to this day still very effective and gruesome.
The picture and sound quality in tiptop shape. A lot of love has been poured into this edition and looking at what comes along with the main feature it is easy to see what a labour of love this has been. Other distributors out there may want to take note of the quality of product here.
Now this is how you release a decent special edition. As well as the film in digital quality there are hour upon hour of extras here. All very well researched, all very candid and all very entertaining. The main supplemental material is a feature length documentary on the main film itself. Just about everyone from every technical capacity has be brought in to talk about the making of the film in detail. At two hours it runs longer than the film and never gets dull as you get to discover how the creative minds came together and how many upsets there were on set.
There is also a half hour making of on the films official sequel (the response to which by the cast and crew is very candid!), and another 20 minutes on the overlooked third film.
There is also an interview on the origins of the film, an FX featurette as well as one the music soundtrack. Throw in a music video, deleted scenes from the documentary, a look at the locations today and a lengthy interview with Dan O’Bannon as well then you get just about every stone unturned in this excellent package. This is simply a high class must buy for cult fans out there!
Steven Hurst