The Return of the Living Dead

      You have no pulse, your blood pressure's zero-over-zero, you have no pupillary

             response, no reflexes and your temperature is 70 degrees.

Medical supply warehouse foreman Frank informs his new clumsy employee, Freddy, that Night of the Living Dead was based on true events that occurred when a gas (2-4-5 Trioxin) was released into the morgue in the basement of a Pittsburgh, PA VA hospital causing the bodies to jerk around as if they were alive. The poorly organized military was unable to get a handle on the situation and ended up putting all the corpses into barrels and sealing them shut. The story was leaked and the military said the movie Night of the Living Dead could be made but they had to change the story around and say it was fictional. Through a clerical error the few barrels containing the Trioxin infected bodies were shipped to the warehouse and have remained there for years. A skeptical Freddy doesn't buy it, so Frank takes him to the basement and shows him the barrels. Inside the barrel they see the now-mummified remains of the body and Freddy is scared about the barrel's durability. Frank reassures him of the solid military construction of the barrels by slapping it on the side, causing a leak of the gas, poisoning and knocking out the two as we see the glass on the lid break open and the body starts to liquefy, becoming filled with thick tar.

While this is happening, Freddy's girlfriend, Tina and her friends are going to pick up Freddy from the warehouse. They arrive early and (in an effort to pass the time) decide to hang out in the cemetery that is next door. Time passes and Freddy and Frank awaken and see that the body in the canister is gone; they assume it dissolved upon contact with air. They head upstairs to try and sort things out only to hear a strange noise coming from one of the shelves. Upon investigating, they find out that the half-dog anatomy display has returned to life, the dog whimpering in pain and panting. Freddy and Frank proceed to freak out and attempt to silence the dog by bashing it with a walking crutch. Other things in the warehouse, such as the dead butterfly display, have returned to life, culminating in the screams of the now reanimated cadaver in the freezer. After several minutes of panic, the two decide to call their boss, Burt Wilson. The three devise a plan to try and stop the zombie based on the method that worked in Night of the Living Dead: bash it in the head. Upon opening the freezer, the cadaver runs for Burt and after wrestling it to the ground, Burt staples it to the floor with a pick axe to the head. Despite this, the body continues to thrash around, even when they cut off its head with a bone saw so they decide to take it over to the mortuary next door and see Burt's Nazi old friend Ernst "Ernie" Kaltenbrunner and have it cremated.

Meanwhile, back in the cemetery, night has fallen and the gang of kids are listening to music and talking amongst themselves. Tina is worried about Freddy as he should have been off work by now. She leaves the group to go investigate. Meanwhile, the discussion turns to death and imagining the worst possible way to die. Trash, the pink haired "tramp" of the group, imagines the worst way for her to die is to be surrounded by a bunch of old men that start eating her alive. As she says this, she is ripping off her own clothes and begins to dance in only gray leg warmers atop a grave.

At the mortuary, Burt, Frank and Freddy convince Ernie to cremate the sawed up remains of the still twitching freezer cadaver but the furnace releases the gas from the zombie into the clouds, causing it to rain. The rain, contaminated with the Trioxin, forces the gang out of the cemetery to their car. They mention how the rain burns their skin. The car's convertible roof starts to leak, so they run to take refuge inside the warehouse.

At the warehouse, Tina wanders into the basement to look for Freddy. She still does not find him and notices the empty canister and is disgusted by the smell, making a loud noise and she is then suddenly ambushed by the canister body, now covering in the thick black tar and mostly deformed. She tries to run away but a step breaks and she falls down and she hides in a locker. The zombie, moving at a very slow pace and speaks with an eerie deep voice, finds a chain and attaches it to the door and tries to tear it off with a winch. Tina sobs in terror. Luckily, the gang arrives just in time to rescue her. One of her friends, Spider hears her crying and he leads the other friends to the basement and they are disgusted and terrified to see the corpse. The tar zombie excitedly bites the top off of Suicide's skull killing him. Tina escapes the locker and runs to join her friends as they escape the basement. Fleeing the zombie and the warehouse, they make a run for the mortuary, having seen some men enter it earlier. During this time, the rain has been seeping into the ground and as a result, into the coffins causing them to reanimate. As the group takes refuge at the entrance to a mausoleum, they can hear the muffled screams and pounding of the dead under the earth. As they listen, they spot the skeletal remains of a corpse, rising from the ground, its eyes opening and jaw dropping. The group then proceeds to run in panic and splits up; Tina, Spider and Scuz heading for the mortuary, Chuck and Casey heading back to the warehouse, and Trash remaining behind in the graveyard. She falls into a puddle of muddy water, panicked and crying, only to be surrounded by a group of undead who proceed to eat her.

During this time, at the mortuary, Frank and Freddy are starting to feel very sick and are looking deathly ill. Ernie calls the paramedics. Tina , Spider and Scuz show up claiming that there are bodies getting up out of the ground in the cemetery. The paramedics arrive at the rear entrance and find that by all medical reasoning, Frank and Freddy are dead and shouldn't be moving around. The paramedics want to get them to the hospital for further testing and go to get the stretcher and report in to the dispatch. They are subsequently attacked by the zombies from the graveyard who proceed to request that the dispatch "send more paramedics." The mortuary is then attacked by the zombies at the front of the building and the remaining people start to board up the place. They then hear the second ambulance arriving and are witness to its instant mobbing and attack by the zombies. One of the boarded windows in the storage room is broken open and needs to be reinforced; during this, Scuz is killed but Ernie manages to snag half of the zombie that did it and subdues her. They take her back to the embalming room and tie her down and ask her questions. She is able to respond despite not having a lower half and suffering from decades of rot and decay. Asked why they attack and feed on people, she corrects Ernie and says "not people, BRAINS!" When asked why brains, she tells them it is the only thing that stops the pain of death: "I can feel my body rot!", leading Ernie to the conclusion: "Apparently it hurts to be dead."

Meanwhile, Police have been sent to investigate the two ambulances not reporting in and are attacked. The zombies radio to "send more cops." Frank and Freddy are slowly becoming zombies and are moved to the chapel area to be sealed in. Tina stays with Freddy who dies, reanimates and then tries to attack her. She screams for help and the others come to her. Freddy has acid splashed in his eyes and they manage to lock him into the chapel. Frank, meanwhile, before becoming a shambling zombie, makes his way to the cremation furnace and incinerates himself. It is decided that the only way they are going to be able to get help is to try to escape in the police car. Burt and Spider make a run to the car and are able to get in and move it to the door of the mortuary, however they quickly become surrounded by zombies and must leave without the others. They are able to make their way to the warehouse where they can try to phone the police to warn them of the situation. The police have set up a blockade around the area of the cemetery and send in several squad cars which are directed into the scene by a now zombified policeman. The cars are attacked and it is witnessed by a police helicopter overhead. At the warehouse, Casey and Chuck greet Burt and Spider and report that zombies have broken into the office. Unfortunately the telephone is in the same office. Burt suggests the one in the basement but the teens tell him about the tar zombie who's still down there trying to break out. Burt says they have to try for the basement and they knock the zombie's head off with a bat as they open the door. The zombie lets out a painful scream. This allows them to get to the phone and Burt proceeds to call the police and ask to speak to the person in charge of the blockade. As they are connected, the zombies rush the blockade and we see the commander taken down by a now zombified Trash.

Disheartened by the noises from the phone, Burt calls the number on the side of the barrel. He is connected to Colonel Horace Glover who gets some information from Burt about location, time of occurrence, number of zombies, etc. Burt is then transferred again and explains to the teens that apparently the army has been expecting something like this to happen for a long time and have a plan in place to deal with it. Back at the mortuary, Ernie and Tina have escaped to the attic area of the embalming room as Freddy breaks out of the chapel screaming for Tina's brain.

Colonel Glover is connected to an artillery post and provides coordinates and clearance to launch a small yield nuclear attack in form of nuclear artillery at the location of the cemetery. All of these scenes culminate with the sound of the nuclear shell being fired: Burt still on hold, Freddy breaking into the attic with Ernie pointing his gun at Tina's head; planning on killing her and himself to avoid being eaten, the zombies standing and staring at the sky, a long whistle of a shell falling, and finally a shot of a small nuclear explosion. The film ends with Colonel Glover stating to his superior officers that the strike seems to have been successful and that reports are coming in of the only side effects being a little acid rain. Glover assures his superiors that this won't affect the President's trip to Louisville tomorrow morning at all. The last scene is of a darkened cemetery and a skeletal zombie rising from its grave.

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