Return of the Living Dead Part II

I had this one mixed up with the original which was funny and had an awesome soundtrack. This one was too silly.

On rare occasions sequels can be either fun, just as good as the original, or on even rarer instances, better than their predecessor. Unfortunately, this movie is neither of the three. I will admit I wasn't going into Return of the Living Dead 2 expecting the great fun I had with the first one, but was hoping for a decent zombie flick. Too bad I didn't get what I hoped for. Well, for starters, let's tackle the story. It seems to take place not too long after the first one but that's about it. What sets this apart mostly story wise from the first, is that there are no punks in the movie, but instead, it plays out almost like a typical kids flick from the eighties, such as "The Goonies", "E.T.", or "The Monster Squad"; which is weird because the movie is rated R. The acting isn't too bad, but the dialogue sucks. I understand most of it was supposed to be campy, which is fine by me, but instead it is too much and comes out poorly. Also, the characters are somewhat flat and aren't really likeable, unlike the first movie. In fact, the main kid in this movie annoyed the heck out of me. And some of the actors just seemed somewhat bored. Next there is the comedy, or lack thereof. While the first one was pretty funny, the jokes and gags in this one are bad and fall short of being remotely. After this we have the zombies, which are actually one of the few highlights of the film. For the most part they look great, except for the ridiculous hair pieces that most of them where. Also, there isn't a lot of gore in this compared to the first, which might disappoint some. One of my biggest complaints though is the soundtrack. I loved the first movie's soundtrack, which was cool and sometimes even catchy, because it actually added to the movie, but this one's just sucks. A lot of synthesizers are used and the occasional rock song played never matches to the punk tunes of the first. At least the poster art is good, though somewhat deceiving. If you've seen the first and want to see this, then just rent it.

Okay, I would be surprised if it had some additional scenes or extra bloody gore scenes or whatever, but not changing the scores and music, what the hell was that additional dialouge has been dubbed, in the scene when Freddy starting to eat Brenda's brain, it was off track!!! When I first got the dvd, I was thrilled, but I start watch it, my ears, my eyes, and my mind just zapped, like something wrong with movie, something different, I was mad, even the director on the commentary wasn't satisfied of the track, I know all of us fans felt the same way. I love the first movie and the second movie. Movie still good, I'm okay with it, but I they can redo this, like first film did, the special edition with the original track, GOD I hope!!!!!!!!!!!!

'Return of the Living Dead Part II' tried to re-capture the lightning-in-a-bottle so brilliantly achieved by the original. It fails on all levels. This time around the comedy is more abundant, but nothing is funny here. The effects are bad, the acting is atrocious... and THE MUSICAL SCORE HAS GIVEN ME EAR CANCER. I found out shortly after viewing this turd that the music on the DVD is not the original score. Believe me, 'ROTLD2' might be a hair better if the original music was in place, but it's still a failed attempt at zombie comedy. I felt bad for James Karen and Thom Matthews as they stumbled around trying to be like their characters from the first movie. It's really quite embarrassing to behold. Do yourself a favor and buy the excellent 'Return of the Living Dead' and pretend its four sequels never happened.

As others have said before me in their own ways, this movie is no Casablanca or anything but was fun to watch when I saw it as a kid - and enjoyable enough to add to my collection to sit next to my eagerly and long awaited DVD release of the original Return of the Living Dead (1984).
I was very excited to see this finally get released on DVD and could not wait to purchase it - I bought it at Best Buy the day it came out!!! That said - I have tried to watch this movie at least five times since it's release in October of 2004 (now August of 2008) and cannot get any further than the first cemetary scene...THE SOUNDTRACK IS AWFUL!!! It truly makes this movie unwatchable!! No joke - seriously - I mean REALLY UNWATCHABLE!! What the hell were they thinking?! If they couldn't secure the rights to the original soundtrack then they shouldn't have released it at all...this new soundtrack is mediocre at BEST!! Please WB, recall each and every one of these DVD's and have them shredded...they should not be allowed to even be seen or heard. The new soundtrack is the scariest part of this DVD!! I can't believe someone could have actually TRIED to mix this awful music into the movie and feel, "Oh, yes, this is great - I'm sure fans of this film will love this new simplistic version of the soundtrack." I am aware I am going on a little bit too much about this 2 star movie at best but, well, I actually liked it back in the day (warts and all) and one of the best things about this movie back then was it's original "Score" (although, it was synthesized orchestrations - they definitely sounded WAY BETTER than this S**T!!)
Put the original score back and re-release it for us true fans, please.
Thanks...umm, anyone want to buy a DVD of ROTLD II...great condition...Practically unwatched...