Nerds That Geek Movie Review: ‘Return of the Living Dead 3’

Written by John Edward Betancourt 

​I firmly believe that when a group of people set out to make a motion picture, they really do have the best possible interests in their hearts. They want to make a good movie, they want to wow an audience and enjoy success. But sadly, I think we can all agree that while good intentions are important, execution is a bigger deal with it comes to movies as a whole, and good intentions mean very little to the audience when filmmaking fundamentals go the wayside and deliver unto the audience a sub-par motion picture.
 
But sadly, this kind of problem happens often and to a certain extent it flat out breaks your heart because you can sometimes see where the director and the crew poured their soul into a story, only to have a massive flaw in the script or the execution backfire horribly and this strange twist in filmmaking is on my mind today, simply because it’s precisely what makes Return of the Living Dead 3 such a disappointing movie when all is said and done. Because this is a horror sequel, that quite frankly had all kinds of potential. After all, it paid homage to George Romero’s Day of the Dead by giving us a plot line involving the military working to control the living dead and as an added bonus, it started to explore something fresh and exciting when it comes to this genre.
 
For zombie stories rarely explore the process of zombification outside of someone being bitten and turning, but this one…made a solid attempt to explore what it is like for a person to slowly transition into a flesh-eating monster and the early parts of this plot thread are downright brilliant. For Julie is genuinely confused at the prospect of death and reanimation and it is fascinating to watch her try to figure out what comes to next for her now that she’s back from the clutches of the void. But sadly, the film’s greatest strength plot wise, is precisely where it goes off the rails, because once the opportunity arrives for Julie to eat brains, the story basically changes course completely.
 
For the brilliance that this movie was working toward, and all of the magnificent ideas and concepts presented here are abandoned so that the film can move into more familiar territory. Which means that Julie’s journey is wasted she slides into the old cliché of ‘one cannot escape their nature’, and the strange soldier zombies that show up in the third act are just…bizarre and feel out of place, and to top it all off, the gore and splatter here feels routine and boring and something as important as that becoming so pedestrian, completes this movie’s downward spiral into a mess when all is said and done and really, the end result when it comes to this story is just a crying shame.
 
Because this movie truly was diving into fresh and exciting territory, and while I do believe everyone behind the scenes genuinely wanted to make a great motion picture, I get the impression the weight of the new ideas coming forth in this tale, spooked the filmmakers in unexpected fashion. It’s possible they believed going down this road would alienate their base audience when in fact, they would have loved it. For the original film was a breath of fresh air for the zombie market, not the familiar mess this turned out to be. But alas, what is done is done, and if you’re a fan of this saga, or zombie flicks in general, this one is worth a look, if only to ponder upon what might have been, had director Brian Yuzna chosen to be bold over playing it safe…

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