F*CK! I Love Return of The Living Dead by: Ted "Ritualistic" Brown

Growing up in nowhere Kentucky much of my time was spent renting random horror films from various mom and pop video stores with my friend Brian. I was never really into sports or the other various social outlets you have pushed down your throat as a child, scouts, etc, so much of my childhood was spent in front of a Television screen and nine out of ten times there would be some sort of horror film being viewed.

Cover art was a huge deciding factor back when I was a kid when it came time to choose horror flicks to watch, without such things as the internet it made keeping up with the best of the best a lot more difficult. The only form of information we had was what we got from various monsters magazines like Fangoria, and the trailers that would be included with each VHS.

I remember the first time I walked past the VHS box for "Return of The Living Dead", by this time in my life I was already really into the punk rock scene, so once my eyes locked onto a group of what appeared to be punk rock zombies I was sold. An already big fan of George Romero and the original dead trilogy, zombies had become a big part of my viewing schedule. Long before it was the in sub-genre I found myself obsessed with zombie culture and would rent every sub-genre film I could get my hands on regardless of where it was from or who made it. When I thank back to those days "Return of the Living Dead" always comes out on top as one of the most important not only zombie films of my horror journey but one of the most important horror films in general.

I love everything about "Return of The Living Dead", from its flawless soundtrack that even to this day I still consider to be the best movie soundtrack ever created, to its beautiful display of good old fashion practical effect driven gore, and who can forget the endless stream of quotable lines from a cast of unforgettable characters.

While other kids knew that Bo knew best, I wanted to be just like Suicide (R.I.P. Mark Venturini 1961–1996) and honestly a lot of my style today can be traced back to the character with just a dash of The Breakfast Club's John Bender (Judd Nelson) for good measure. As a kid who looked up to many of the punk rock greats Suicide had it all, he had a badass rundown ride, wild friends, and who can forget the jaw dropping sexy Trash (Linnea Quigley) by his side. Oh how I use to spend endless hours day dreaming about Linnea Quigley as a young boy, perhaps this is even the reason why I have spent much of my later years chasing after tattooed girls dressed head to toe in black and leather.

"Return of The Living Dead" also had some of the best special effects from the era, I remember just sitting speechless during the first viewing being totally blown away by how awesome the gore and zombies were. The scene with the medical dog cadavers that were split in half started barking is forever burnt into my brain, along with the zombie being tied down on the table and interrogated. This film has so many quotable moments it's ridiculous.

"You think this is a fuckin' costume? This is a way of life." - Suicide

"Send... more... paramedics." - Zombie

"More BRAINS!" - Zombie

"If you love me you'll let me eat your brains" - Freddy

Just to name a few, not to mention the entire conversation I mentioned above with the half zombie female, who informs them that she needs to eat brains to kill the pain of being dead. The conversation between the paramedics and Freddy about their symptoms being those of death also really sticks out in my head as a very memorable and just all around magnificent scene.

All I know is I absolutely love this film, and if by some chance you have never seen it do yourself a favor and go watch it as soon as humanly possible. For me personally this is most defiantly one of my all time favorite horror films and will always find itself on my top ten list safe from ever being bumped off. There are few movies I have watched since "Return of The Living Dead" that have left such a strong impact on me in all the ways it managed to do as a film. Audibly, visually, and mentally it's a total package flick filled with laughs, gore, sexiness, and enough zombie mayhem to satisfy even the most fanatical fan of the reanimated corpses of the dead.

- Ted "Ritualistic" Brown