Zombie Movie Review (12) of the Day: Return of the Living Dead 4: Necropolis

“Send more security guards…”

Once again, I am doing two movie reviews today. Originally, I planned to do one of Return up to Halloween and do some Halloween special reviews, but I am not doing a review tomorrow as me and my friends are having an all day Romero marathon in preparation for Halloween. Do not worry; I will be reviewing Return 5 on Halloween as well as at least one other film.

Necropolis leaves the feel of the third film and brings us back to camp….really…bad…camp. The acting is better than in other movies, I have seen but it still sucks. Both Necropolis and Rave to the Grave were straight to DVD films not released in theaters. However, before they were released on DVD, they were on the Sci-Fi channel (back when it was Sci-Fi instead of trying to be all clever calling itself Syfy). And by one Sci-Fi I do mean what you think I mean: Sci-Fi channel original movie Saturday Nights at 9pm. Yep. You know what that means…it means suck!

In truth, 4 and 5 are not that bad. They are fun, entertaining, and they look good seeing how they finally have a budget. Lionsgate ending up buying the rights to the Return series except for 1 and 2. Even though 3 was originally released by a different company. I know this because the trailer and my DVD contradict each other. We all know that Lionsgate is either responsible for really gory films, really bad films, really gory and really bad films, or fairly decent and even sometimes pretty good films. Point is most times Lionsgate films suck. If you want further proof, they also acquired several older companies that only produced suck. For a summed up history and some fun visit http://thecinemasnob.com/2009/10/01/the-big-box-jigsaw.aspx.

It has a made for TV feel regardless of being produced by a big company. It even stars Peter Coyote who is mostly known for TV movies and narrations. However, he was in E.T and an episode of the 80’s reboot of the Twilight Zone. He plays the evil scientist in this one.

Now I only recently purchased 4 and 5 not because they are good but because I owned 1, 2, and of course 3 and my OCD tendencies won’t allow me to not buy 4, and 5 also. Why is this important? Well, I get most of my knowledge from obsessive re-watching of movies, DVD special features, and sometimes imdb and Wikipedia. Necropolis and Rave to the Grave have no special features on them and I have only seen each movie twice. Of course, there are many zombie movies I do not own and have only seen once but if I do not own it, it is because no matter how entertaining it is, it is not worth wasting money on. However, I can still give you a fun review as always.

The movie follows a group of teens in high school just like in Return 1. These kids are not as 80’s as the movie was made in 2005 and takes place in 2003 (10 years after Return of the Living Dead 3) but you get the feeling that the beast known only as the 80’s is slowly devouring their souls. The main member of the group is Julian, who is the nephew of the evil scientist I mentioned. Julian’s little brother is a pyro which is actually relevant to the plot of the film. Julian’s best friend is a hacker named Cody and for all of you out there, let this be a reminder to you that it is always a good idea to have a hacker in your group of friends, you never know when it might come in handy. What I am basically saying is: Plot Device. Oh and by the way, this is a movie I have no problem spoiling; the other characters really do not matter because only Julian any Cody survives for the sequel. Yep. Even the little kid dies. Now, do not get me wrong, that’s messed up, but it does redeem the movie a bit because any time a horror (or trying to be horror) has the balls to kill a child deserves at least a modicum of respect.

This is a universe that now accepts zombies as existing, as can be clearly seen by the evil corporation Hybra Tech’s commercial explaining how thanks to Hybra Tech, there hasn’t been a zombie outbreak in 10 years. Keep that in mind. This is a universe that has had at least four zombie outbreaks in the last half century, one that was pretty much covered up but a movie was based on it, one that may have been covered up and two that definitely got the public’s attention.

Also, Chernobyl is somehow related to zombies. There, we find the last three barrels of 245 Trioxin. Oops, actually it is now called Trioxin 5. Continuity? Let me help you. The writers I guess decided that nigh omnipotent zombies are a bad plot point so they retcond that and brought back the Romero zombies. Oh, they still want brains and can sort of talk and the recently dead are basically evil versions of their living selves, but they can be killed with a bullet to the brain now. On their own, each of these two instances of continuity holes makes no sense but if you combined them, you can rationalize it. The government made a weaker version of Trioxin in a further attempt to make super soldiers that could still be controlled to a degree despite their history of failure. So, Trioxin 5 zombies are different from 245 Trioxin zombies.

I mentioned an evil Corporation, did I not? Hybra-Tech. Now this movie came out after both Resident Evil and Resident Evil: Apocalypse. Hybra Tech is a blatant rip-off of the Umbrella Corporation. The commercial states that Hybra-Tech makes everything from bread to Napalm, which is pretty much, what Umbrella is. Take Wal-Mart, Disney, Coca-Cola, Neutrogena, Maybelline, Halliburton, and Pfizer Inc, put them together and you get the Umbrella Corporation and Hybra-Tech.

Julian’s parents died in an accident a year ago on a volunteer mission to Chernobyl helping with the radiation (his parents were doctors for Hybra-Tech). His uncle gets the last barrels and starts experimenting. Some of the gas leaks out and infects a couple of homeless people but the teens don’t get interested until one of the friends, after having a motorbike accident, it taken to the local hospital. When Julian arrives, he is told his friend Zeke, died after having a reaction to the painkillers. However, another of their group works for security at Hybra-Tech and saw on the camera that he was taken into the facility there. His uncle is an idiot. One o the people you kidnap for experiments is not only a friend of your nephews but another of their friends works for the company in security? Are you that stupid or just pompous?

The teens have a battle preparing montage (because they cannot escape the 80’s), and storm the facility. They find the homeless zombies and, even though this is a world that knows about zombies, they do not get it for a while. They rescue their friend who is later killed, and Julian finds out that his uncle has the bodies brought back there and were put into the bio-weapons project (again, stolen from Resident Evil). This guy really is evil. One of the parents is logically his brother or sister and he is experimenting on their corpse as well as their spouses and he has no problem putting his two nephews who are like 18 and 13 in dangerous situations that he could care less if they survive or not.

This movie actually has a redeeming theme: anti-corporations and anti-capitalism. However, this movie stole that theme from the Resident Evil movies. The movie is fun, but not as fun as the last one in the series (oh I am going to enjoy reviewing that one greatly). Return of the Living Dead 4: Necropolis is no worse than Return of the Living Dead Part II. Therefore, I give Necropolis 2 out of 5 stars.

Fun fact, one of the teen’s last names is Romero. This is a world in which George Romero exists (he just never wrote Dawn of the Dead or Day of the Dead) and therefore it is possible she is related to him in the context of the series.