Return of the Living Dead II

This review contains some spoilers, but trust me-- you'll be doing yourself a favor if you read this instead and skip the movie. .

I might have been able to tolerate ROTLD 2 if they hadn't blown it and made their biggest mistake by having James Karen and Thom Mathews return for this movie. In the first one, they played co-workers who started the whole chain of events. As you will recall, neither survived the movie, either dead or undead. In this one, they play co-workers who are grave robbers, though they did such a bad job establishing what the hell they were doing in a mortuary and why that I didn't figure it out till one of them stole a diamond ring from a corpse. If this is supposed to be the same fictional world as the first one, that breaks all believability immediately. At the very least, they could have stuck in some line about their twin brothers disappearing 3 years ago. But no. It goes from confusing to insulting (do they think the people who saw the first movie aren't going to remember?) to embarrassing, to...to...arrrgh! I can't find the words (printable ones, anyway).

This movie lost me about 75% when they repeated their exchange from the first movie: "Do you like this job?" "Like this JOB???" never mind that it was said completely out of context for the scene. From there, it had lost me 98 percent, but then when I was horrified to hear the younger one say (after, of course, they turned out to have died like in the first one) "I don't know, I get this feeling like this has... somehow happened before... deja vu..." That did it. I watched the remainder of the movie for the sole purpose of writing a review later in which I could rip it to shreds.

First, the positive points of the movie:

1.. Uhhh....I'm thinking....

2. Some lead characters I was rooting for them to die, did die.

3. The movie is only 89 minutes long.

Here's some questions- -and these are just the ones that immediately came to mind while watching-- a short list compared to what I could write:

Why did the two actors from the first movie appear as other characters in the sequel (looking identical to how they looked in first one with no explanation as to why they are dead ringers for the co-workers in the original? Why do the Zombies lurch slowly and stupidly along, when in the first movie, they got around fine, even if they were missing key body parts? Why does it take two characters at least 15 seconds to decide to run when a rotten corpse comes back to life and only looks irritated when they bury a weapon in it's head? When a house full of about 25 of zombies attacking, when the TV is accidental turned on, why do they (the zombies) instantly freeze and become fascinated by an aerobics show? (please God, I prayed, don't let them start doing the aerobics along with the instructor).

And here's just the tip of the iceberg on continuity errors: One attacking zombie is wearing a suit that looks so clean and neat it may as well be right off the rack (after he clawed his way out of his grave) which is bad enough, but in later shots there's graveyard mud on one of his lapels. A rotted severed head, with no lips I might add, yells--enunciating clearly- 'get that damn screwdriver out mah head!" with its mouth barely moving. I thought the dubbed voice was supposed to be coming from one of the characters at first.

The acting and screenplay is not just inconsistent and sloppy, it's so horrendous that you can't even get a laugh out of it being unintentionally amusing. It's hard to tell if certain atrocious scenes are that way because of the bad scripting, bad editing, or bad acting-- probably a mix of all three. Poor James Karen, he tries his best, but it's a lost cause. Remember the first movie, where the zombies were consistent (and original)? Here some lumber slowly, some run, some managed to hot-wire a jeep and drive it around. In one scene, a zombie walks in and out of frame so casually that I'm convinced it was an extra who didn't think they were shooting, looking for craft services, maybe. Also, this thing is guilty of many counts of characters who act amazingly stupid, even for a horror movie
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But wait! There's more (I told you I was going to rip this to shreds) ROTLD2 contains stupendously, embarrassingly bad dialogue. The guy that turns out to be the hero actually says the following seriously: "Ya did good, kid." and "That's one for the GOOD GUYS!!"

Also, they break one of the major rules for any self-respecting zombie movie: main characters turned into zombies never show up again. I could break down examples of where they tried to imitate the first movie, but failed wretchedly, contrasting them, but this already long review would turn into a book-length essay.

Just pretend this movie was never made, OK? Thank you.