In 1985, Dan O'Bannon brought us one of the greatest installments in the zombie genre since George A. Romero's Dead films. Return of the Living Dead was a landmark zombie film of historical and hysterical proportions.

     Then in 1988, Ken Wiederhorn laid down the next installment to the series.  Though, much looked down upon, Return of the Living Dead 2 was an even more funny, though not as grim follow up to its predecessor, but still quite enjoyable.

    Five years later, Brian Yuzna released Return of the Living Dead 3, which I felt aside from the first to be a fantastic installment to the genre, not to mention it probably contains one of the hottest zombies to ever hit the screen (next to Linea Quigley, of the original film).

    Now, after almost 8 years of waiting with anticipation, Ellory Elkayem (Director of Eight Legged Freaks and They Nest) brings us one of the biggest pieces of film vomit, ever to be spat of out of your DVD player and onto the T.V. screen.

Return of the Living Dead:  Necropolis

(Or, shall I say, Necrapolis)

     The epidemic begins with a leak in the Trioxin 5 Ventilation line, which infects 2 homeless men and their most delicious meal. If I'm not mistaken, in the original 3 films full infection in a living host does not take place for at least a few hours. Meanwhile, in this monstrosity of a film, it took only a few minutes for the host, or hosts, to become fully infected and rise as the undead. I suppose the creators of this film didn't want to bother with something so meaningless. Yet to me this is most important component to the story line of these films.

     The story itself begins with a group of teens embarking on a little journey through the Hybratech building to find a friend of theirs, whom they thought was on his way to the hospital due to a concussion.  But to their surprise, he was brought to Hybratech, for reasons unknown to them.

     While searching for their friend, they discover something most upsetting.  The uncle to 2 of the teens, Charles Garrison (Played by Peter Coyote), is hiding something from them. Not just a friend, but something even closer to their hearts (top secret shit, shhhh!!).  Now, Peter Coyote, being, well... on average a fantastic actor, (seen in such films as, E.T. and the cult classic, The Hebrew Hammer) was terrible.  Its amazing when you see a person with great acting skills suck ass in a movie.  This one was a major career slip for him, in my opinion of course.

     All hell breaks loose, as the power to the Hybratech building shuts down, unleashing the undead from their holding cells.  Now that I think of it, if I'm not mistaken, the zombies in these films can only be killed by burning or being electrocuted, whereas in this disasterpiece a head shot and a body shot can put them down.  Hell I don't think some of them got shot at all, but they still went down. Oh well!  No, wait, now that I'm the topic of fuck-ups, yes I did indeed state earlier in the review, that the gas was called Trioxin 5, which was not a typo.  Trust me. Being a big fan of the original 3, I know that the gas is called Trioxin 2-4-5.  Unlike the three individuals responsible for this quivering mound of cow flop they like to call a movie, I know my history, as I am sure that most of you reading this do as well.

     O.k. back on track here, on the upside to this film, there are many excellent headshots, brains, guts and gore. The biggest plus of all was a scene where a little kid gets brain munched.  The Uber zombies were cool as shit, but, they were definitely not in the film long enough to truly enjoy their beauty.  The zombies themselves were very well done.  Makeup and FX wise, this film was up there, but that's it? That's all we get?  No real fucking storyline?  No sticking to the history?

Ratings:  (as if I haven't said enough)

 As for the scenery, this film pretty much took place in one building, meaning they probably didn't have enough budget to do much more, rather than spending it on making the movie a bit better by using different locations or what have you, they decided to just concentrate their money on the gore and shit, which is usually ok with me, just have a decent story to back it up.  Now, the location that was used in the film, the Hybratech building, is a blatant rip off of Resident Evils Umbrella Corporation.  I felt this way because of the fact that in the film, Hybratech runs/controls and manufactures everything, from TV sets to Uber zombie clones which by the way are never explained in the film. You just see them, even though you can kind of figure it out, being that the film was extremely predictable.  For scenery I give a 4.

For the make up, gore and FX overall, this film was well done, the only thing that was enjoyable.  For this I give an 8.

As for the story and direction, this film could have been fantastic, had they put a bit more effort and shit giving into the whole making process.  The story was weak and the direction was terrible, if they had they used better actors, maybe it could have been a tad better, though I doubt it.  What this film needed was a different writer, or writers, a different director and a different cast.  As far as the story and direction is concerned, this film gets a 2.

When it comes to the acting, which I have mentioned a few times throughout the review, it was just God awful.  Like I had said, even Peter Coyote was shite.  The rest of the cast were a bunch of never will be's. Had it not been such a bad script and so badly directed, fuck! Who knows!  For the acting this film gets a 2.

The score was cool; it definitely had the same type of punk and hair metal type tunes heard in all the other films, so it was definitely enjoyable, mainly for that reason.  For the score to this film I would have to give it a 5.  It was cool and all, but not really my type of shit.  Now Part 1, there's a fucking soundtrack!

Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis gets my overall rating of a 3.  A definite landmark piece of shit!

The only thing I can say, is if you liked films like House of the Dead or, no wait, that's it. I cant think of anything else so awful off hand.  If you liked that, you will probably like this.

This film is a definite, do not own and do not rent, unless you are just curious as to how bad it really is, or just want to finish off your collection.  God only knows how bad the 5^th one will be, ill get back to you with that.  Im a collector so I have to buy it, even though I dont want to.  Please shoot me!