Return of the Living Dead III (1993)

Having recently witnessed the horrific results of a top secret project to bring the dead back to life, a distraught youth performs the operation on his girlfriend after she's killed in a motorcycle accident.

Director:

Brian Yuzna

Writer:

John Penney

Stars:

Kent McCord, James T. Callahan, Sarah Douglas

3 wins & 1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Kent McCord	...	Colonel John Reynolds
James T. Callahan	...	Colonel Peck
Sarah Douglas	...	Colonel Sinclair
Melinda Clarke	...	Julie Walker (as Mindy Clarke)
Abigail Lenz	...	Mindy
J. Trevor Edmond	...	Curt Reynolds
Jill Andre	...	Chief Scientist
Michael Decker	...	Science Technician
Billy Kane	...	Sentry
Mike Moroff	...	Santos
Julian Scott Urena	...	Mogo (as Fabio Urena)
Pía Reyes	...	Alicia (as Pia Reyes)
Sal Lopez	...	Felipe
Dana Lee	...	Store Owner
Michael Deak	...	Cop #1 (as Michael S. Deak)

Storyline

Colonel Reynolds and his group of government scientists continue their work on re-animating the dead for military use. His son Curt and his girlfriend Julie use Dad's security pass to sneak in and watch the proceedings. Later when father and son have a disagreement, Curt and Julie take off on a motorcycle and Julie is killed in an accident. Grief-stricken, Curt takes her body to the lab and brings her back to life. Curt must help Julie deal with her new existence as military agents and local gang members try to find them.

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Plot Keywords:

female nudity | zombie | sequel | living dead | self mutilation | 

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Taglines:

Back from the dead and hungry for more.

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Genres:

Horror

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for horror violence and gore, and for language and sexuality

Details

Official Sites:

MySpace

Country:

USA Japan

Language:

English Spanish

Release Date:

25 February 1994 (Brazil)

Also Known As:

Return of the Living Dead 3

Filming Locations:

7th street bridge, Los Angeles, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$2,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$14,810, 31 October 1993

Gross USA:

$54,207

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$54,207

Company Credits

Production Co:

Bandai Visual Company, Ozla Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

97 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

At one point in pre-production, James Karen and Don Calfa were offered roles in this sequel. Both actors declined.

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Goofs

(at around 40 mins) The dead cop being eaten by the shopkeeper zombie blinks when a piece of viscera drops near his eye.

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Quotes

Curt Reynolds: I liked you when you were... the way you were before.

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Alternate Versions

Vidmark released this film in both R-rated and Unrated versions on VHS and laserdisc in the 1990s. The R-rated version deletes the majority of the film's gore from the opening lab sequence, as well as heavily reducing the shooting of the storekeeper, removing shots of a cop's eye being punctured with a crowbar, graphic closeups of Julie's self-mutilation with a wire spring and a piece of glass, and a reduction to the infamous 'ripped lip' sequence.

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Connections

References Street Fighter II': Champion Edition (1993)

User Reviews

GenX Zombies

Curt, a GenXer army brat, is madly in love with Julie, a Gothy punk girl with a fascination for the morbid. In order to impress her, Curt swipes his dads clearance card and the two lovebirds sneak into the high security testing facilities of the military base. Curt's dad, a high ranking military official, is involved in some pretty sick experiments which center around the reanimating powers of the chemical known as 245 Trioxin. After witnessing a gruesome resurrection, Curt and Julie flee, have sex and find out that Curt's dad is being transferred. Rather than be torn asunder, the two run away together. But a terrible motorcycle accident cuts their plans - and Julie's life - short. Now it's back to the base to reanimate his beloved, but even though the resurrected Julie seems normal, it's only a matter of time before her dead body rots, and her human emotions are replaced with an insatiable hunger for living human brains.

This third installment in the ROTLD series avoids the campy black comedy of the first film, and the utter stupidity of the second. It falls somewhere right smack between the two and ends up being halfway decent. There's some great scenes of cutting, scarification and body mutilation as Julie discovers that self inflicted pain can temporarily curb her nasty appetite. Whether or not this was an intentional comment on the habits of GenX teens to mutilate themselves to curb feelings of depression, I don't know, but it's quite effective and, considering that this came out in 1993, rather timely as well. Julie ends up resembling a Cenobite rather than a zombie, decked out in leather, chains and broken glass, but I'm not complaining. There's a LOT of gore, most of which takes place in the military labs as zombies are fitted with harnesses, lobotomized with power drills, held together with metal exoskeletons and, in general, end up resembling an S&M orgy gone horribly wrong. It's pretty nasty, graphic stuff, but the zombies themselves are pretty cool looking, especially one who ends up looking like a freaky, bipedal giraffe.

The story isn't anything new, but some of the acting (especially that of Mindy Clarke as Julie) is pretty good and the zombie effects are impressive. The ending is a downer, but not as grim and disheartening as it could have been.

All in all, it's fairly enjoyable. It's much better than Part 2 was, anyway.