The Dumb Cool Weird Podcast
It is a podcast that covers old movies from the 20th century that are funny and ridiculous. We cover what is dumb, cool, and weird about each movie. We are raw and don't show mercy!!
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The Dumb Cool Weird Podcast
Return of the Living Dead (1985): A Punk-Fueled Comedy Zombie Classic - Episode 57
What happens when you mix punk teenagers, a medical supply company accident, and experimental chemicals? Chaos, hilarity, and a whole lot of brain-craving zombies! Join us on the Dumb Cool Weird Podcast as we explore the wonderfully bonkers world of the cult classic "Return of the Living Dead." This episode promises an entertaining romp through the film's quirky plot, from accidental zombie outbreaks to the iconic "brains, brains" motif that redefined the zombie genre. Get ready to laugh at the misadventures of our punk protagonists, the military's epic blunders, and how one crematorium becomes a fiery sacrificial hotspot.
We don't just recount the madness scene-by-scene; we also dig into the movie's unique blend of horror, comedy, and punk culture. Discover why this '80s gem stands out among its undead peers like "Dawn of the Dead" and how its nod to "Night of the Living Dead" solidifies its place in zombie lore. With our irreverent take on military mishaps and endless zombie antics, you'll see why "Return of the Living Dead" is a must-watch for horror-comedy fans. Plus, as always, we wrap up with a reminder to tune in for more bizarre movie insights and catch our occasional Wayback Wednesdays.
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Dumb Cool Weird Podcast. Hi there, welcome to the Dumb Cool Weird Podcast. We're doing Return of the Living Dead, which is not a Romero movie, but Romero liked it. Yeah, Romero liked it, and it's kind of got a weird continuity in it. So apparently in the movie the guy mentions that Night of the Living Dead. Yeah, Night of the Living Dead.
Speaker 2:And he's like, like it was actually based off of an incident that happened at a va hospital in pittsburgh and you know what. I think that's actually kind of funny that they would probably be using an experimental comp like chemicals on a bunch of veterans during vietnam, like well, maybe we could like reanimate them a little bit yeah, use them for war right bring them back so they can go and eat the Viet Cong Yep.
Speaker 1:So this is one of those movies that is very silly, it's over the top and it kind of sets pretty much a precedence and a tone for future zombie movies. And Nick knows what I'm talking about. The term brains, brains Yep, and that is Return of the Living Dead Keyed. The term brains, brains yep, and that is return to the living dead keyed. The term brains, brains, brains. So anytime you've ever heard about zombie movies, what do you hear? Uh, brains, brains, brains, brains. Because the, the zombies, always want brains, but really the reality is they only wanted brains in this series of movies yeah, and they wanted them because it was actually helping numb the pain of feeling their bodies decompose.
Speaker 1:Yeah it's the pain of being dead but alive at the same time.
Speaker 2:You know, and that's amazing, though, it kind of gives them that hit like a drug or something, that when they eat a brain they just don't feel the pain momentarily.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:But they can never stop consuming.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a good one. If you've never seen return of the living dead, it's definitely one of those movies that has to be on top of your list of an 80s flick to watch.
Speaker 2:It's also silly but kind of. You know it's a zombie movie. It's a fun, silly zombie movie with a kick-ass soundtrack too yep, I mean, you pretty much start at a um.
Speaker 2:It's a medical supplies company and then you know, new guy coming in just getting a little rundown of how the business works. Boss man says you ever watch that movie. Now they're living dead. We got the containers down there. Let me go show you this dead body. Kid yep shows him the dead body and then he's like. He's like yeah, the army fucked up and accidentally sent what sent these things to us and he goes oh, can they break open?
Speaker 1:nah, man, these are reinforced.
Speaker 2:This is the army corps of engineers just laps the shit out of that thing, and then the gas gets in their mouth and you know, then the tar man's just hiding in a closet somewhere yeah, it doesn't even try to eat them.
Speaker 2:And then the buddies show up, all the punk buddies, and and uh, they, they show up in their shitty, fucking broken down car they have spray paint drawn all over it, so that they could wait for jerry his name was jeremy so that they could wait for jeremy to get off of work so they could go party. Yep, pretty much. And uh, they seem to be having a good time out there. I mean that one chick just romanticizes about death, takes off all of her clothes and then she's dancing naked and well, don't forget, they fucking break open that fucking um graveyard with the fucking sledgehammer. Oh yeah, yeah, they needed a place to party.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Just a bunch of 18-year-olds who look like 20-something-year-olds needed a place to party.
Speaker 1:Every movie ever and basically what ends up happening is all the cadavers come to life in this medical facility.
Speaker 2:Some of them are like over a hundred. And then when the dead guy that they had in the freezer wakes up, he's pretty pissed.
Speaker 1:Yep. And then they decide to beat the shit out of him, cut his head off, and then they take him next door to a mortician.
Speaker 2:Before that this was the funny part. It was when they're like wait a minute, wait a minute, let's kill it. Well, how, in the movie they destroyed the brain, yep, and then they actually drove that spike through its head, didn't do anything, and it didn't do a thing and they're all like but you said it worked in the movies, well, it's not fucking working now.
Speaker 1:It's not a movie. This is real life, Because it even says it in the beginning of the movie. It's like these are based on true events. These are actual events.
Speaker 2:These are actual places and people.
Speaker 1:Because then the reality is, these zombies don't go down just from destroying their brains.
Speaker 2:No, no, they keep coming back, yeah, God.
Speaker 1:So they end up going next door to the mortician and the mortician's like oh yeah, let's burn up the body. They burn up the body and then it evaporates, oh yeah, into the air.
Speaker 2:I love how they told him yeah, it's a bunch of rabid weasels, yeah, he's like well, can I at least take him out in the parking lot and put him out of their misery? He pulls out his gun, like how often do you do this that you know?
Speaker 1:the neighborhood's going to bat. Yeah, I know, right. So they end up burning the body. It gets absorbed into the atmosphere and then it rains back down. And when it's raining, the trioxin which, by the way, the name of the chemical is trioxin, apparently is is a chemical that the us government created to spray on marijuana. Spray on marijuana to kill the marijuana, I guess.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't really catch too much of that. Maybe somebody in the comments section could figure out that scene and tell us that thing that they said they were doing with that chemical.
Speaker 1:Yep. And so it ends up raining back down and apparently when it rains down on human, like normal humans, it apparently burns your skin skin a little bit, but it doesn't do anything to you. But when it hits a decomposing corpse, leaks to the ground, hits a corpse, or it leaks on just a regular corpse above ground, it apparently reanimates like the corpse yeah, it reanimated a couple of hundred year old corpses yep, people that obviously should have been skeletons at this point, maybe even some of them dust, but obviously they're, you know, bones.
Speaker 1:They're supposed to be bones but they have flesh on them. Makes no sense.
Speaker 2:No, no, it doesn't, because, like you said, you need the muscles to move. Yeah, there's no way. Yeah, but then Jeremy and the other boss man were getting rigor mortis.
Speaker 1:Yep, yeah. So the boss man and Jeremy were dying from rigor mortis. They get the paramedics out there and they're like oh man, they don't have blood pressure, no pulse, no reflexes, yep, their room temperature and their skin is like white colored, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's like well, we're not saying you're dead, but you're kind of dead, you're kind of dead, you're moving around, which doesn't make sense. Yeah, but you're dead, yeah, you're dead, god. And then when he turned on the lights and then they just strike him, that was crazy, that was pretty creepy. And then when they called in the bring more paramedics.
Speaker 1:Yep, yeah. So these zombies that come from the graves. They destroy everybody, and the one hot punk girl with the red hair, she gets eaten alive.
Speaker 2:I was surprised.
Speaker 1:And she gets buried in the mud.
Speaker 2:I was kind of confused about that, because she's not the only character who comes back reanimated. So do they also have the ability to sort of infect people? No, they don't, because that's what I was going to say. I know they don't. So, because that's what I was gonna say, I know they couldn't really infect anybody, because that one cop, so it's.
Speaker 1:It's really dependent on the trioxin hitting the body because when you think about it, you know the one paramedic that had his like half of his brain cut off. He didn't get reanimated because he wasn't getting rained on, but the the one girl. She died and when she, she got rained on and she came back to life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because she was buried under the mud. Yeah, but that was the thing, because one of those cops also had the same situation happen to him, the one who was leading in the other cops with the signal light, yep, so did they maybe not eat his brain? Or did they know how to utilize the trioxin, or how does it work?
Speaker 1:Because maybe they ate part of his brain on the back side or something.
Speaker 2:And then he got hit with the trioxin and they were like, oh, we can't eat him now because, remember tarman, remember tarman didn't eat the other two yeah, because like uh and that's what I was saying earlier is like he he probably didn't bite into their brains because he's like ah shit, still fucking hungry. Yeah, exactly what does the motherfucker got to do to get some food around here?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and speaking of Tar man, we got to talk about Tar man. Tar man is fucking terrifying. He is terrifying. When I was a kid, tar man scared the shit out of me. Yes, because the normal looking girl who's in the punk group goes downstairs to find her boyfriend Jeremy and she's like Jeremy where you at, and stairs to find her boyfriend jeremy and she's like jeremy where you have it. And then she looks over and then, and then, and then they do like a hitchcock, uh cinema zoom shot on her and then it cuts back to the tar man and he's like brains, and then yeah, and he just kind of slides out of the wall.
Speaker 2:Yeah, looks like he's smearing shit all over the walls too yeah, well, I mean, he is kind of made of shit.
Speaker 1:I mean he's just one big pile of garbage and shit. Dude, yeah, he did melt in that container, yep, and basically they end up going downstairs and trying to save her and then the one guy with the slight mohawk gets fucking eaten. His brains gets eaten.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that guy looked like he should have been like a punk, not not a punk. He should have been like a jock yep, not a punk, yep and basically what ends up happening?
Speaker 1:is they run over this? Is they've run away? They? Leave them there they leave them there and they run away back to uh, where the mortician is, and they go inside, they knock on the door, they let them in and they end up getting attacked several times. They bring one of the uh living dead in there and they start asking it questions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's where we find out that the dead need to consume the brains so that they can get rid of the pain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so apparently being alive but also being dead at the same time is painful and they can feel themselves rotting and it makes them want to eat brains. Apparently, when they eat brains, it relieves the pain.
Speaker 2:Do you think it's because the brain releases dopamine? It could be, they. They're eating the dopamine hit yeah they're getting a dopamine hit every time, that's probably brain.
Speaker 1:That's probably what happens. Yep, that's probably exactly what happens. They probably get a dopamine hit every time. They do that wonder how long it lasts for you.
Speaker 2:You know, I mean just because you know they got to go through a lot of brains before they rot.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, absolutely. And what ends up happening is the two guys who originally got infected with the trioxin. The one guy turns into a zombie.
Speaker 2:Yeah, jeremy turns into a zombie and goes full bore. And the other guy he goes to kill himself in the crematorium.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I guess he had enough self-control that he was like I'm a menace, I need to go kill myself, and he just goes and fucks himself up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he unalived himself.
Speaker 1:He put himself in the self-checkout line of life, Yep pretty much and really the rest of the movie, is the other group of people. They run back to the old, back to the um, the Asian girl and the new wave guy. The new wave guy and the black guy and the other, the, the mortician.
Speaker 2:They run. No, that was big boss. Man Mortician had to go into the ceiling with a. That's true.
Speaker 1:Big. So yeah, that's true, like big other two people and they, they hide in the basement where, uh, the tarman was. If they knock the tarman's head off, they go downstairs and they call.
Speaker 2:They finally call the army corps of engineers and they call the colonel who we saw in the beginning of the movie, with his wife who has been searching for these fucking things 24, 7 yep and they're like oh, what's going on.
Speaker 1:And he's like why didn't you call sooner? And he's like why didn't you call sooner? And he's like why didn't you call sooner? And then he's like he's like oh well, what's been going on?
Speaker 2:uh-huh uh-huh, oh, how many did you say oh?
Speaker 1:oh and what? What happened in the cemetery? Oh okay, how many were in the cemetery? Oh okay, let me just uh go over here to my little control panel real quick. And then they're like oh, is he's, he's? And then he goes oh, he's got a plan.
Speaker 2:He's got a plan, he's gonna take care of everything and the aging girl's like oh yeah, that's great then they call the guy, then they call the guy in the mobile artillery and he already knows what's going on.
Speaker 1:He's like, oh fuck yeah, we better, we better blow this shit up. He's like. He's like oh, you got the codes yeah, he was like.
Speaker 2:He, like everybody's been briefed on what to do If this thing gets out of hand.
Speaker 1:Yep, and so what ends up happening is they're in the basement and they go Do you hear that? Do you hear that? And the town gets nuked, and Jeremy breaks into the attic as soon as the town gets nuked and they're all dead. And then it all gets nuked, it evaporates back into the air and then it rains back down and then the process starts all over again and then the movie ends.
Speaker 2:Hey, Well, remember, it's atomized, so it might not come back. Except we got like three or four sequels, so yeah, yeah, that's because apparently, the army doesn't know how to get rid of the chemicals safely ever. Well, they just started leaving shit everywhere. Yep, gets us right into the dumb. Cool weird, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:it does so what's dumb?
Speaker 2:the fucking chemicals being dropped off to this medical facility and brought to the basement. Okay, first off, that shit would have had to have been brought in by a contractor or some soldier who was in charge of this top secret shit to actually make sure that it didn't go to some random place Stupid. You know. I know there are jokes that the you know, the military, can be a little incompetent at times.
Speaker 1:I should know, but that that wouldn't have happened well, it's also dumb because, like he was, he was like oh, we could have called this number, but we're not going to call this number exactly like.
Speaker 2:At no point did they think. You know, it's only contained to this building right now, so we should be fine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, call the number.
Speaker 2:They never called the number, yeah, but no, the fact that they brought it to the basement, you would think that somebody would have had like knowledge of that being there.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You'd think they would have called the number and been like, hey, we got these canisters down here and the army would have been like, oh yeah, let's let us get that and put that in like area 51 or something like deep underground. Like why would you get those and say, you know, we're gonna keep these, even though we know the what was it? Trioxin yep is very dangerous and we should probably get somebody over here who can handle this yep.
Speaker 1:That isn't us yep exactly what would you say is the cool about this movie? The fucking soundtrack. Yeah, goddamn that fucking soundtrack. We're talking like hair metal, glam metal, heavy metal. A little bit of synth wave. Yeah all mixed into one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it really picked it up a notch compared to the other movies. The other sound, Day of the Dead had a great soundtrack, but Dawn of the Dead's soundtrack was wacky as hell.
Speaker 1:And that Tar man fucking makeup effects was fucking awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not just cool, but fucking awesome they actually did really good with a lot of the zombie effects yeah, like it is like leagues above anything else.
Speaker 1:I mean I like you romero, but god damn, dude, this fucking, this one took it to the next level, like literally well, we can't blame romero.
Speaker 2:He didn't exactly have much to work with we'll see romero.
Speaker 1:Romero released his movie in 85. This movie came out in 85 as well, oh yep. So it's like you got to think about it. It's like when you watch these movies, both these movies that year, you're like, oh shit, this fucking return to the living dead movie had some fucking crazy ass, goddamn makeup effects.
Speaker 2:It also had some really funny moments. Yeah, exactly, situational humor is great.
Speaker 1:What's weird about this movie?
Speaker 2:Hmm, I think we actually.
Speaker 1:I can't remember if we established that part, but I think it was really weird how they beat the shit out of that dog. Oh yeah, the dog wasn't really trying to attack, beat the shit out of that dog.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and the dog wasn't really trying to attack anybody it wasn't a threat. They're like oh, let's kill it, let's kill it, let's kill it. You know? What was weird, though, is like they didn't call you know what. Let's go back to the fact they didn't call the number. It's weird that the Army's been looking for these things for so long and they didn't just think to backtrack just a little bit just a little bit yeah, but maybe the weird, maybe the weirdest thing is what they they had.
Speaker 2:They had a lot of hope that this out-of-hand situation wouldn't lead their town to getting nuked well, it's also weird that the guy who owns this entire facility didn't think that oh, that's a good one yeah, let me call the number first. Well it's weird.
Speaker 1:It's weird because, like, the guy that owns the facility didn't think, he didn't think straight. He was like oh well, we got all this stuff down here, we got all these canisters full of dangerous chemicals that could possibly do something to things and we're just gonna keep them down here yeah, that's weird.
Speaker 2:That is weird too, because it's like you allowed the army to drop this off to you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly At what?
Speaker 2:point. Did you actually think that this would be beneficial to you at all? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:It's also kind of weird how, even though things were going so south for the cops, they just kept sending cops in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like this is containable.
Speaker 1:Uh, where's the national?
Speaker 2:guard. Can we uh get the guard or somebody else here, because this shit is like out of hand, like we don't have that many cops well, movie logic right yeah, what they already went through, like their whole police force yep, pretty much who else is gonna do anything.
Speaker 1:Nothing.
Speaker 2:Nobody's gonna do shit you know what you know. What's funny though what's that a little weird is when one of those cops was getting attacked. If you saw on the scene one of the at the barricade where they're getting attacked, one of the cops tried to rescue the other cop by wrapping his his arms around the head of the zombie and he tore the head off. That was wild. That was pretty wild.
Speaker 1:This was a great one though yeah, it was a good one. That was Return of the Living Dead. It's not as serious as the other three we watched. It's pretty fucking funny. I mean, I guess Dawn of the Dead's pretty funny, but not as Whimsical more than funny, it's whimsical yeah, but this one is definitely a lot more entertaining and funny, but it's definitely an eighties classic. It's not a direct sequel. It's not really a like a like a uh official sequel to those movies, but there it's definitely in there, though.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, so it's technically canon, because they mentioned night of the living dead.
Speaker 1:So you should definitely check it out and, um, you should definitely watch it. So, nick, you want to sign us off? Stay sexy, atlanta. Thanks for watching the Dumb, cool, weird podcast, where we cover some of your favorite movies in 20 minutes or less for your convenience. We go over what is dumb, cool and weird about movies and check out our Wayback. Wednesdays we do sometimes for other stuff. No-transcript.
