You can divide zombie films into roughly two eras: the lumbering corpse era and the fast, rabid stage. The first type is best exemplified by George Romero’s series, while Danny Boyle’s28 Days Latertrilogy popularized the latter iteration. But before the “Rage Virus,” there’s a forgotten chapter of zombie history that did an awful lot of the heavy lifting for the modern breed of zombie fare, serving as the bridge. Dan O’Bannon’sThe Return of the Living Deadrewrote the book on what a zombie movie could be, featuring zombies that moved with purpose all the way back in 1985.
Though commonplace now, decades before films likeWorld War ZandZombielandand the video gameDays Gone,horror media was filled with decomposing monstrosities stuck in first gear due to rigor mortis. Many of the tropes of the zombie genre can be linked directly to the 1968 George Romero opusNight of the Living Dead, notable for zombies who limped at a leisurely pace, exhausted having just crawled out from under six feet of dirt. Though younger filmmakers responded, as we saw the rise of “infected” or mutated undead. In 2002, we witnessed the evolution of the genre in28 Days Later, director Danny Boyle exhuming the zombie trend, but a few directors got there first, muddying zombie taxonomy, as we’ll explain. It’s hard to identify the first fast zombie on celluloid when there is no consensus on what constitutes a zombie.
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Return of the Living Dead
The compelling force behindThe Return of the Living Deadwas writer/director Dan O’Bannon. Though an unknown at the time, he’d kept busy, popping up in some of the era’s most memorable films, including a stint as the co-writer ofAlien, collaborating with John Carpenter, and special effects work onStar Wars: Ep. IV - A New Hope. Later, he worked on the 1990 version ofTotal Recall.
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His greatest moment behind the camera came in the mid-’80s when he landed the chance to direct his own brain-feasting extravaganza. O’Bannon livened it up — no pun intended — with the addition of a new gimmick: speed.The zombies in this film would probably beat you in a foot race, bathed in a radioactive, chemical slurry.The film also elaborates on the zombie diet, i.e. juicy brains, firmlyestablishing that gruesome tropein moviegoers' imaginations ever since. Do not play a drinking game and take a shot for every utterance of the word “brains,” or you will die.Title aside, it was an unauthorized spin-off of sorts of Romero’s franchise, and was unmistakably banking on audiences being already aware of that universe and its trappings.
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Many “zombie” movies are in desperate need of an asterisk. We must clarify that not all flesh-munching, mindless monsters are technically zombies — David Cronenberg’sRabidis a useful example of what superficially appears to be a zombie, but is not.Until the ’90s, there was a problematic gray area when it came to differentiating vampires from zombies.A task made yet more complex as some movies occasionally refer to their zombie-like fodder as “ghouls” or “demons,” depending on the translation or screenwriters' whims.
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The many adaptations of Richard Matheson’sI am Legendnovel famously identified its creatures as infected vampires, despite the fact that the book and the 1964 Vincent Price film were likely an inspiration for George Romero’s work, and the nimble mutants in the 1971TheOmega Manare zombie adjacent. Close, but no cigar.
We’ve narrowed it down to one or two viable claimants to the creator of the agile-zombie film trope.That goes toUmberto Lenzi’sNightmare City, premiering in Italy in 1980, if we are being pedantic. Some have labeled the antagonists inLifeforceas fast zombies, but we’d disagree, disqualified as they are identified as “vampires” in the source novel. Feel free to disagree in the comments.
The Purpose of Fast Zombies
The speed of a zombie serves a purpose.Lethargic zombie flicks are fittingly slow-burn affairs, usually introspective and social-minded, the zombies serving as window dressing or standing in for some message.Whereas quick zombies tend toward spectacle and gory set pieces, think something likeDead Snow.The reason we’ve seen such an explosion of zombie films is that the concept has utility, accommodating different styles, includingcomedies likeShaun of the Dead.
The Return of the Living Deadbroke with convention first. As journalistDavid Del Valle saysinThe Complete History of The Return of the Living Dead, “It was a satire of George Romero’s film and that was exactly what was needed.” It’s old school, while not feeling dated.It is also a meta-comedy, referencing other movies and relying upon fans having a working knowledge of prior zombie movies, lore, and horror tropes.
True to its ’80s horror pedigree, the movie is unabashedly shlocky, full of gratuitous nudity, catchy punk rock songs, and visceral, practical special effects. It knows its audience. It’s still an effective piece of horror, dripping with black humor and flair, downbeat yet funny. You get the impression O’Bannon was trying to do too much, but the film holds together because of the pacing. It never takes itself too seriously and isn’t fixated on the generic story but instead hangs its hat on likable characters. We highly recommend it for horror fans and ’80s movies aficionados, if only for historical context.
Check it now on MGM+ streaming while you can.
