| Return of the Living Dead 3 | |
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DVD cover |
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| Directed by | Brian Yuzna |
| Produced by | Lawrence Steven Meyers Brian Yuzna Gary Schmoeller John Penney |
| Written by | John Penney |
| Starring | Melinda Clarke J. Trevor Edmond Kent McCord Basil Wallace |
| Music by | Barry Goldberg |
| Cinematography | Gerry Lively |
| Editing by | Christopher Roth |
| Distributed by | Trimark Pictures |
| Release date(s) | October 29, 1993 |
| Running time | 97 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $2,000,000 (estimated) |
| Box office | $54,207 (USA) |
Return of the Living Dead 3 is an American romantic-horror film released in 1993. It was directed by Brian Yuzna and was written by John Penney. The film stars Melinda Clarke as Julie Walker, J. Trevor Edmond as Curt Reynolds, Kent McCord as Col. John Reynolds and Basil Wallace as Riverman. Return of the Living Dead 3 is the second sequel to Return of the Living Dead (1985) but bears little resemblance to its predecessors. It drops the comedy that had defined the series prior and replaces it with a dark serious romantic theme. It is followed by Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis (2005).
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When Curt Reynolds (J. Trevor Edmond) steals his father's security key card, he and his girlfriend, Julie Walker (Melinda Clarke), decide to explore the military base where his father works. Using the card, they sneak into a hangar and observe Curt's father, Col. John Reynolds (Kent McCord), Col. Peck (James T. Callahan) and Lt. Col. Sinclair (Sarah Douglas) overseeing an experiment with a corpse.
The corpse is exposed to 2-4-5 Trioxin gas. Trioxin, developed in the late 1960s, re-animates the corpse into a zombie but with behavior change from previous films in the series; these zombies show that they run rather than walk or limp. The military's intention is to use zombies in warfare as expendable soldiers. However, once re-animated, the zombies are difficult to control.
To solve this problem, Sinclair plans to attach the zombies to exoskeletons, which could be locked down when the zombies were not in battle. Reynolds takes a different approach: his scientists have developed a method of "paretic infusion" to paralyze the zombie until it is needed. They fire a chemical bullet into the forehead of the zombie which creates a localized endothermic reaction that freezes the creature's brain. At first, the paretic infusion test looks successful, but the effect wears off much more quickly than expected and the re-animated zombie comes back to life and bites Dr. Hickox's fingers off. The zombie then proceeds to bash Hickox against a wall until he is dead. Having been infected by the zombie, Hickox is re-animated as another zombie and starts biting one of the other technician's legs while the technician begs and pleads for mercy. Hickox is paralyzed with bullets and everyone in the room is quarantined. The magnitude of this failure causes Reynolds to be re-assigned to Oklahoma City and Sinclair to be promoted to head of the project.
When Reynolds informs Curt that they'll be moving again (something they've done a dozen times in Curt's life already) Curt refuses. Angrily, he storms out of home, riding off on his motorcycle with Julie. While the bike speeds down the road Julie playfully grabs Curt's crotch causing him to lose control of the motorcycle. He veers into the path of an oncoming truck, swerves and slams strongly into the road guard rail. Julie is thrown from the bike and into a telegraph pole, the impact breaks her neck and kills her.
Distraught, Curt brings Julie's corpse back to the military base. Using the key card again, he sneaks her in and uses the Trioxin gas to re-animate her. Julie initially seems perfectly normal (most likely due to her extreme "freshness" as a corpse, having only been dead for less than an hour), but soon starts exhibiting symptoms, such as pain (from rigor mortis and the general state of being dead, as mentioned in previous movies) and hunger that cannot be satiated by regular food. An attempt to do so in a convenience store accidentally leads to a confrontation with a Hispanic street gang, where the Chinese owner is shot and left for dead and later is turned into a zombie as well. Julie bites and infects Mogo, one of the gang members. This leads to a subplot of the gang chasing Julie and Curt through the city, not realizing what is happening to their infected friend. After Julie attempts to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge they encounter a vagrant who calls himself Riverman, who takes them in and hides them in the sewers. He gives Curt a coin, saying it is a representation of his philosophy of "if you meet someone, do them some good, then tell them to pass it on". In the meantime, the military has learned of Curt's break-in and Julie's exposure to the Trioxin. While Curt's father is extremely worried about his son's welfare, Lt. Col Sinclair couldn't care less. She is only interested in reclaiming a valuable test subject.
Back in the underground, Julie discovers that extreme pain seems to make the cravings to feed on humans go away for a while, which leads to a scene where she adorns herself in "S&M zombie" gear scavenged from the debris around Riverman's lair, complete with a large shard of glass driven through one hand, and a piece of leather, weighted down with a rock, pierced through the other. This actually comes in handy when the gang finally tracks Julie and Curt down. In a very messy confrontation with the gang, she uses her new decorations to stab, beat, and otherwise kill several of the members. Unfortunately, her body starts to become numb to the pain over time, and she winds up turning on Riverman, infecting and killing him. Things seem very bleak for the survivors until they are "rescued" by the military.
With the remaining gang members shot, Curt is taken back to the base, and Julie is impounded as military property by Sinclair. Curt manages to rescue Julie, but in the process he winds up setting off a chain of events that free the remaining original Trioxin zombies from their containers. While trying to escape, Curt and Julie encounter none other than Riverman, who is now locked into one of Sinclairs's prototype exoskeletons. Sinclair soon finds out the exoskeletons aren't quite as effective as a means of restraint as she had hoped (which incidentally leads to her death). Riverman is about to kill Curt as well, until Curt displays the coin Riverman gave him earlier. This apparently brings to the surface enough humanity to cause Riverman to spare Curt and Julie.
By now the entire facility is on a countdown to incineration. Curt and Julie are nearing the exit, when a Trioxin zombie manages to bite and infect Curt. Realizing that he is now infected and then will become a zombie in a few moments, Curt decides at the last moment not to escape, but to just commit suicide, despite his father's pleading. His father watches in horror as Curt and Julie leave the area. Curt and Julie end up going to the crematorium and climb inside the furnace. The two lovers then share a final embrace as the flames surround them and the screen fades out while they burn to death offscreen.
Reviews were generally good for this second sequel. Entertainment Weekly gave it a B+ and said "it's chock-full of brain-munching zombies, campy dialogue, and gross anatomical effects-but it's that touch of amore that makes this one so special."
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