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.

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:

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

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Taglines:

She's To Die For.

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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

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

Brain Peck is the only one to appear in all three Return of the Living Dead movies. ("Scuzz" in ROTLD and various zombies in ROTLD II) returns to play a government agent in this film.

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Goofs

(at around 15 mins) Immediately after the teens are making love, Curt rolls off of Julie, only to reveal that she somehow has been making love with black panties on the entire time.

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Quotes

Curt Reynolds: Julie, are you eating him? You should stop it.

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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

Referenced in Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship & Videotape (2010)

User Reviews

I cannot contain my disdain any longer

After a recent showing on Sci-Fi reminded me of just how much I hated this movie when it first came out on video, I thought I'd vent my frustration with a review.

Stay away from this one! While an attempt was at least made to return to the horror aspects of the horror-comedy "Return Of The Living Dead," the result is simply a mess. Even barring the about 10 complete screenplay rewrites and the 20 different special effects teams, they still didn't get it right. They can't decide whether zombies eat human flesh or brains, despite the fact is told at the beginning they eat brains. After becoming a zombie, Julie complains she can't feel her flesh, yet, complains of near constant pain from not eating human bits. The whole silliness of inserting sharp objects into her body is merely an excuse to appeal to the self mutilation and piercing fetishists, who were a small minority at the time. Cops indescriminantly shoot at escaping vehicles even when it's just a robbery call, and, even shoot a wounded man in the back when he opens the door, calling for their help. And the whole "We love each other so we belong in Hell because Hell is now the cool thing" motif is just plain annoying.

The sad thing is there are things to potentially like in this story. A real reason offered for eating brains, the attempt to revitalize zombies as Army bio-weapons, the cyborg Riverman zombie. Even some good actors like James Callahan and Sarah Douglas, who even manage to eclipse the bad acting of Kent McCord. But, what is entirely unforgivable, especially given what was already stated in the previous paragraph, is how there is absolutely no moral consequence given to any actions in this movie. The guy who revives his girlfriend, the aforementioned Julie, from the dead doesn't even give a second thought before doing it. When she is revived and wants to kill and eat people, all she does is blame him for reviving her, he who in turn merely yells at her for being unappreciative. As she goes and eating and/or killing and eating people, all he does is scream her name, ocassionally smacking her. She kills Riverman, who helped find Julie and save her boyfriend, too, and, the guy doesn't even seem phased. He just screams her name again, like she's supposed to know it's bad merely from that and stop. Everything seems to be justified merely because they love each other. To Hell, and by the end of the film they mean that expressively literally, with everyone and everything else. Even if it means absolute destruction.

Very few redeeming qualities, which are utterly swept aside by how many detestable elements this film had. And, now, they're making a Part Four even after this debacle?!