Brilliant and touching

A lot of fun.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Joining up with friends in a cemetery, a kid's discovery of a long-lost barrel of military-test chemicals finds that the release of the chemicals brings the dead to life and stalking their home-town forcing them to hold off the creatures as they find a way of stopping them.This here was a pretty descent sequel with some fun stuff about it. Among the better features here is the really exciting and enjoyable opening here, which features some nice action and some creepy visuals together for a fun time here as the sprawl through the cemetery and being chased by the bullies where he gets backed inside the mausoleum where he encounters the dead bodies in their caskets and leads into the fantastic resurrection scenes as the billowing cloud slowly works out from the drainage pipe into the cemetery where the gnarled hands break free from the heaving earth in the middle of the pouring rain. The later scene where he confronts the tar-man in the tunnel before the bigger mass-grave exhumation filled with hilarious gags and cheesy music makes for a great blend of suspense and cheesy action, which leads nicely into the race to get out of the cemetery as the swarming hordes of zombies overrun the graveyard in a really enjoyable time here. Even the suburbia scenes here are quite fun with them initially driving around and meeting with the two, the house attack which leads to their hilarious escape attempts and finally sneaking through the neighborhood to escape in the car which has some really fun and enjoyable moments here. Likewise, the film has a really enjoyable and exciting finale here with the soldiers confronting the zombies in a massive shootout before they begin chasing the group through the streets in several different attack scenes while they lead the creatures to the power-plant which has some fantastic action in the mass swarming on the truck that locks them inside, the eventual escape and chasing around the facility both inside the truck and out on foot before utilizing a comically cheesy yet oddly creative and effective disposal method of the zombies that really ends this on a high note. Along with the great zombie make-up and fun cheese, these here make for a really fun time here against the film's few flaws. The film's main problem here is the convoluted and clumsy mid-section here, built entirely around the absolutely tired ploy of nobody believing anything he says here without any reason why which continually leads them into encounters with the zombies when a fair bit of smartness would've prevented endless running around. That would've avoided the time-wasting scenes in the hospital, dealing with the infected friends and their adventures through town which are just unnecessary here and ruin the flow of the film. The other problem here is the rather overbearing sense of cheese here from the jokes, the goofy situations and non-threatening nature of the zombies in their actions here. While it makes the film fun, this one does come off more of a cheesy version of the genre.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Language, children-in-jeopardy and questionable child activities.

They pretty much copy a lot of things from the first movie. We have Thom Mathews and James Karen playing the exact same characters (only with different names), they get infected and recite lines from the first movies.There's even a scene where Thom's character attacks his girlfriend in a church. Just like the flippin' first movie!Another thing I hated about this film was that half and hour into the film when all Hell breaks loose, we have the main characters SCREAMING and SCREAMING and SCREAMING and SCREAMING and SCREAMING! OH SHUT UP! As if Americans weren't loud and annoying already!The worst character in the film is Brenda. She whines and complains about EVERYTHING! And she's a ginger!The zombie make up is dreadful. None of them look convincing. The make up effects in the first movie weren't the greatest, but they were better looking than the ones in this film.And the movie was just simply boring and uninteresting. The first movie was real campy fun. This one tries to follow the formula, but fails.And the whole electrocuting the zombies to kill them at the end was just stupid. Also, the first movie showed us that you couldn't kill the zombies at all.I've watched the documentary on the Return of the Living Dead Blu-ray, which was more entertaining than this film. And everyone said that the script was lousy and the writer/director didn't give a crap about the film what so ever and only made this film for the dough. And I thought Michael Bay didn't care.Overall, just a boring, uninteresting sequel that decays just like the living dead. I can see why this only got a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes.And yes, the Michael Jackson zombie was just stupid. Even the writer/director didn't want to film it.

I have a modest affection for a movie like this. The script is as dumb as a box of rocks but the movie sets out to be a stupid horror comedy and successfully stays the course. The title identifies it as a sequel to 'The Return of the Living Dead', one of my all-time favorite guilty pleasures. This movie doesn't rise to be it's equal but I give it points for trying.The story is pretty much in the title but I'll go into it as much as I can. In a small community a couple of kids start playing with a large metal drum that fell off of a military truck next to the town cemetery. Out of the drum pours a strange gas, which seeps into the ground and soon living dead rise and go looking for human brains. You can pretty well guess the rest.The characters are pretty cartoonish. We meet: the kid who woke the dead, his sister, a cable installer and my favorite, a fun-loving graverobber (played by the always dependable James Karen), his reluctant assistant, and a jovial doctor. Karen breaks open crypts at the mausoleum and steals their jewelry having fun the whole way.The movie seems less inspired by George Romero's 'Night of the Living Dead' and more by Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' video (to which there is a nod). The living dead are all rotting decay and dripping flesh stumbling around like drunks at a frat party (I loved the scene where twenty of them pile into a convertible and zoom around town looking for brains.Look, this is not great cinema. I love serious films; in fact I thrive on them. But once in a while I like a little junk food cinema. This is one of those horror films that doesn't take itself seriously and doesn't really even try to be a good movie. ROTLDP2 is a good time killer and never pretends to be anything else.

This movie does not deserve some of the harsh reviews it has garnered here imo. It is a much better horror film than ROTLD 3 and you can totally write off ROTLD 4+5 which were horrendous and I don't mean so bad they were good, I mean god awful! This movie centers around what looks to be a new suburban area ( so new 1/2 the houses are partially constructed). The hero here is a young boy and his sister. The characters are OK and make no mistake this film in no way approaches the original. However I did like the introduction of electricity as a means of destroying the "living dead". It has a certain sci-fi plausibility to it. Electricity essentially fry's the cadavers reanimated cns as well as every other nerve system as well in effect finally eliminating the zombie. Electrical current would also have the effect of dehydrating the reanimated tissue-so like I said sci-fi plausibility. This film is better than average and worth a look if you liked the 1st one. Again, don't expect the same quality though.