Zombie chow hounds return

Press, 5 August 1988, Page 26

Zombie chow hounds return

The zombie chow hounds are back for second helpings of fun and fresh brains in the comedy-horror, “Return of the Living Dead Part II,” to start at the Savoy today. Although that nuclear blast at the end of “Return of the Living Dead” may have grilled one group of ghoulish gourmands for good, a few of those mysterious Army barrels packed with bodies and green vapour are still around, and it is that vapour, you may recall, that can turn the living into zombies and the dead into the nondead. You may also recall that zombies are singleminded about what they will eat: brains, as fresh as is humanly possible. That explains why, when some of those barrels topple from an' Army transport travel-

ling through a small town and a couple of bad boys crack one open, tilings do not look bright for the local inhabitants. Returning for “Part II” are James Karen and Thom Mathews, who in the first “Return” suffered a fate worse than death — “zombification.” Sad to say, their fates are no better this time around when they appear as two grave robbers who inhale the green vapour. Battling to keep from literally losing their minds are Michael Kenworthy, as the 12-year-old Jesse, Marsha Dietlein, as his older sister, and Dana Ashbrook, as a cable installer who throws his lot in with the two. Joining them is Philip Bruns as Doc Mandel, a longtime victim of another kind of vapour — that

which emanates from the booze bottle. When the call went out that the “Part II” production team was in need of extras to portray zombies, word spread quickly — almost too quickly. “We had al! sorts of people stopping by our sound stage in Valencia (California),” says Paula Gilmore, extras casting director, “and many came dressed in their home-made costumes. “When we decided to set a time to meet with possible ‘zombies,’ the newspaper in the area heard about it, and ran an item that ‘Return of the Living Dead’ was back and needed zombies. “We hoped we could choose from about 75 to 100 willing participants. We. certainly weren’t prepared for the 500 to 600 that actually came

out for this.” Among the extras chosen were three generations of one family (grandmother, mother and daughter). With “Return of the Living Dead” having garnered international acclaim and box-office success, the directorscreenwriter, Ken Wiederhorn, had a tough act to follow. “Being able to make a sequel to a successful movie in Hollywood is like finding the promised land for a producer,” Wiederhorn says. “I felt honoured I was _ being asked to be a part ' of the celebration, but it is a major challenge to create an identity to a sequel. “This is a horror-com-edy. It is not a spoof on the genre, and I didn’t try to make fun of zom-

bie movies. Tom Fox asked me to take a look at ‘Return of the Living Dead,’ which I hadn’t seen, and it was a revelation. It was creepy and funny at the same time — something very unique. “Return of the Living Dead Part II” also combines the genres of comedy and horror, and since horror is always at the edge of comedy, I just pushed it a little further. I found myself in an ideal situation to play with the concept “It was one of the toughest movies I’ve ever worked on because most of the film was shot at night, and usually we were up against fierce winds and pouring rain. “We also had kids in the cast, which put us on a very tight schedule — it. forced us to work quickly and efficiently.”