Return of the Living Dead Part II (watch it HERE) gets a lot of grief from fans of the horror comedy classic The Return of the Living Dead who feel that the sequel was too goofy and kid-friendly. In the latest episode of our The Black Sheep video series, Lance Vlcek is here to stand up for Return of the Living Dead Part II as a “fun and entertaining little zombie movie” in its own right. Check out this defense of the film in the embed above!
Released in 1988, Return of the Living Dead Part II was written and directed by Ken Wiederhorn. Starring Michael Kenworthy, Marsha Dietlein, Dana Ashbrook, James Karen, Thom Mathews, Suzanne Snyder, Phil Bruns, Thor Van Lingen, and Jonathan Terry (with appearances by Mitch Pileggi, Forrest J. Ackerman, and Allan Trautman), the film has the following synopsis:
A new generation of ghouls is spawned when a barrel of nerve gas, fallen off an Army truck, is cracked open by neighborhood roughs. The escaping greenish vapor turns the living into zombies and the dead into the not-so-dead. Of course, it seeps into the local cemetery… with groundbreaking results.
Outlandish special effects are plentiful. A severed zombie hand goes on a spree in the backseat of a crowded car. A zombie torso – and its missing legs – haplessly search for each other along a hospital corridor. Fright fans needn’t search any longer: this tale of the undead is a feast of fun.
Lance refers to Return of the Living Dead Part II as a “gateway” horror movie for youngsters, and it definitely was that for me. This movie will always have a special place in my heart because it was the first zombie movie I ever had a copy of – recorded to VHS from a late night cable airing, where it was shown right before the 1979 sex comedy H.O.T.S. So my recording of Return of the Living Dead II ended with the opening credits of H.O.T.S., and I watched the hell out of that tape.
This episode of The Black Sheep was Written, Narrated, and Edited by Lance Vlcek, Produced by Lance Vlcek, and Executive Produced by Berge Garabedian.
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