One of the Most Outrageous Zombie Movies Ever Made Officially Arrives on Streaming

Zombies have been terrifying audiences for decades, but there’s only so much shambling around and eating people that the undead can do before things start getting a little repetitive. Fortunately, some filmmakers realized that the apocalypse could actually be quite funny, particularly when the people trying to survive it are spectacularly ill-equipped to deal with the situation. And back in 1985, one movie managed to combine punk rock, outrageous practical effects, and some of the most memorable zombies ever put on screen into an absolute cult classic. More than 40 years later, it’s still an absolute riot.

The Return of the Living Dead has officially arrived on Prime Video in the United States, joining the streaming service on November 1. Written and directed by Dan O’Bannon — who quite incredibly also wrote the screenplay for Ridley Scott’s AlienOne of the Most Outrageous Zombie— this is not your momma’s average zombie movie. This is one of the most surprisingly funny horror movies you’ll ever watch, and it is absolutely ridiculous in all the best ways. But yes, you’ll never believe that this was written by the same person that wrote Alien. 1985 certainly came with quite a few cinematic surprises but probably none more than this.

The story begins when two employees at a medical supply warehouse accidentally release a mysterious military chemical that brings the dead back to life. Unfortunately, these zombies aren’t quite like the ones audiences had grown accustomed to seeing. They can chit-chat, they’re fast, they’re intelligent, and they are absolutely obsessed with eating human brains. Mmm, brains. As the outbreak spreads, a group of warehouse workers, punks, and increasingly unfortunate bystanders find themselves fighting for survival.

• The Wachowskis’ 1999 film won four Academy Awards, including Visual Effects and Film
  Editing.
• Bullet time was shot with a rig of roughly 120 still cameras firing in sequence around the
  actors.
• Keanu Reeves trained in martial arts for about four months before a frame was shot,
  recovering from neck surgery the whole time.
• It opened the same year as Fight Club and eXistenZ, in a run of films about not trusting the
  world in front of you.

• Mad Max: Fury Road won six Academy Awards in 2016, more than any other film that year.
• George Miller storyboarded the entire film as roughly 3,500 panels before there was a
  script.
• The chase was shot almost entirely practical in the Namib Desert, with real vehicles and
  real stunt performers.
• Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth carried the prequel, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, in 2024.

• Blade Runner 2049 won Roger Deakins his first Oscar for cinematography, on his fourteenth
  nomination.
• The film also took Best Visual Effects, 35 years after Ridley Scott’s 1982 original.
• Villeneuve shot it on large-format film and kept the fog and rain practical on set wherever
  he could.
• Three short films by Luke Scott and Shinichiro Watanabe bridge the 30-year gap between the
  two movies.

• Denis Villeneuve’s Dune won six Academy Awards in 2022, including Cinematography and
  Original Score.
• Hans Zimmer turned down Christopher Nolan’s Tenet so he could score Dune instead.
• Dune: Part Two arrived in 2024 and brought in Austin Butler, Florence Pugh and Christopher
  Walken.
• David Lynch’s 1984 version and Alejandro Jodorowsky’s unmade one are both their
  own legends by now.

• The 1977 original won six Academy Awards plus a special achievement award for sound effects.
• John Williams’ score was recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra and became the
  best-selling symphonic film soundtrack ever.
• Andor took the galaxy somewhere colder and earned Emmy nominations for drama series in both
  seasons.
• The saga now runs across eleven feature films and a growing shelf of series on Disney+.

Who Stars in ‘Return of the Living Dead’?

The cast features Clu Gulager (The Last Picture Show) as Burt Wilson, James Karen (Poltergeist) as Frank, Thom Mathews (Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives) as Freddy, Don Calfa (Weekend at Bernie’s) as Ernie Kaltenbrunner, Beverly Randolph (Freaky) as Tina, Linnea Quigley (Night of the Demons) as Trash, Miguel A. Núñez Jr. (Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning) as Spider, and Jewel Shepard (Hollywood Hot Tubs) as Casey.

Produced for approximately $4 million, The Return of the Living Dead earned more than $14.2 million at the box office. The film currently holds a 71% critics’ score and 80% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.

The Return of the Living Dead is streaming now on Prime Video in the United States. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.

Return of the Living Dead

When two bumbling employees at a medical supply warehouse accidentally release a deadly gas into the air, the vapors cause the dead to rise again as zombies.