Part 4 in the “Living Dead” series features yet another unlikely group of young friends that are just out goofing around when the same ol’ stuff starts hitting its respective fans.
One of the teens dumps his dirt bike and is taken away in an ambulance. Instead of going to the hospital, however, he is taken to Hybratech, the big corporation that runs the town and owns all of the businesses. And Hybratech, of course, has a research facility with need of humans for experimentation.
So, his six buddies: a computer genius, a slutty gymnast, a pistol-packing Latino, a nerd girl, the moody orphan boy and Hybratech security girl, decide to go all Scooby Doo and rescue their pal.
Fortunately for them, this multimillion dollar scientific research facility only has the two guards: The highschool girl and a moron. The six teens, (and “Pyro,” the even younger brother of the moody orphan,) briefly succeed in their rescue, but also unleash an army of zombies.
This tissue-thin story is very slow to get going, with too much emphasis on the characters and leaving the plot to just unfold with a whim. It is also littered with unlikeable (and poorly overacted,) characters, who make horrible and stupid decisions, over and over.
On the undead front, the zombies are inconsistent: from walker-types, to runners, to speaking types (and talking smack,) to even fully-armed, heavily weaponized cyborg types that resemble ‘The Borg’ from Star Trek: The Next Generation. All of these assorted styles of living dead, however, are easily dispatched. A couple even dropped with one or two body shots. One with a broken neck! This is a far, far cry from the all but invincible Living Dead from the first movie!
And I get that the filmmakers wanted to capture elements from the original film: eclectic group of teens, loud rock music as a backdrop during zombie fight scenes, (even Peter Coyote got dragged in for a role!) but instead of seeming reminiscent of that movie, it came of as contrived and predictable.
Obviously, I was not a fan of this film. So, I used the Zombie Movie Rubric to grade it objectively. And on the nine points of originality, characters, SPFX, zombies, outbreak, pacing, acting, targeted audience and film quality, Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis scored a 1.66 out of a possible 4 points.
But, really, those are just numbers. It is difficult to remember that a film has good quality to its production when you are watching a total stinker. And it was. The 1.66 score equals an emphatic “avoid” rating.
There is a trailer from YouTube that makes the movie seem a LOT better that it actually is! Enjoy. You can view it here:
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