Return Of The Living Dead Part II (1988) **1/2 [ROTLD Double Feature Pt. 1]

Return Of The Living Dead Part II (1988) is not quite as good as I remembered. It's not a bad film per se—there is some fun gore and prosthetics but also some pretty cheesy f/x. Most of the humor is too goofy and falls flat, and there is never a real sense of peril for the largely unremarkable characters. Its nice to see James Karen and Thom Mathews return and while they provide some laughs in their early scenes, it wears thin as they basically just replicate their performances from the 1985 film (review). Something I either missed or don’t understand is why those two characters get sick in this film, as they were never exposed to Trioxin. Overall, ROTLD2 is half as good as the original (which is a bonafide cult classic)—it rehashes scenes from its predecessor and its new ideas don't really deliver. That poster rules though.