From the Scorecard vault, comes the movie that gave zombies brains: Return of the Living Dead. If there's one thing this movie taught us about zombies/interracial gangs/the army/naked punk chicks/toxic waste/brains it's that you never want to wade into an impending apocalypse sans Scorecard.- Asserting that this movie is based on real and true events when that is clearly impossible = +50pts
- Having the guy who played Governor Fritz La Chatte from the TV show Sledgehammer as one of your leads = +8pts
- Asserting that all skeletons used in medical reaserch come from India because they have nice teeth = -100pts
- Having a teenage gang with every single 80's stereotype represented, as if they were all in one group and actually hung out together (in 1985 = -13pts), in 2011 = +13pts
- Having a main character speak to the integrity of a toxic drum by claiming that is was made by the Army Corp of Engineers right before it promptly falls apart (in 1985 = +5pts), Post Katrina = +10pts
- Having your punk chick character talk about her fantasy death and it involving being raped and eaten by a bunch of dirty old men and then having her take off her clothes (tops AND bottoms) to dance completely naked on a giant tomb = -100pts
- Introducing brains to the discriminating zombie pallet = +50pts
- Not giving the naked punk chick any clothes, even after brains start being eaten = -100 pts
- Having a Motley Crue knock-off play during the cemetery awakening montage = -3pts
- Not killing the only black dude in the movie first = +20pts (In any era.)
- Not putting zombie make-up on a significant portion of the "zombies" in the wide group shots = -13pts
- Little person made to look like a zombie with no legs = +10pts
- Zombies using the CB radios to lure more paramedics/police officers to the scene for more brains = +50pts
- Bringing back the naked punk chick, even after we thought she had mercifully been killed, and still not giving her any clothes to wear = -100pts
- Clips from the movie you just watched playing during the credits and they are not outtakes = -10pts
Available on: Netflix, DVD, Ryan VenHuizen's Creepy Uncle's Basement Video Collection
A movie that has (for good or bad) made a significant mark on the zombie cannon. Once again, the scorecard's rigorous formula provides the exact kind of feedback you need before making your next viewing choice. In short, The Return of the Living Dead, while not very progressive, isn't exactly Birth of a Nation. But then what is?
Score Technician: Sean McConnell
Apparently, Trash has to wear some kind of vaginal prosthesis during her nude scenes in order to avoid an x-rating, which is why she's got the whole Barbie-doll look going on down there. I learned that from a RotLD fan site that was apparently created at the dawn of the internet: http://uneedamed.tripod.com/ (Everyone should totally check it out.)
ReplyDeleteI'm confused... How can a naked punk chick deduct 100 points? On three separate occasions?
ReplyDeleteTwo reasons:
Delete1)This was one of the first Scorecards. So it was back when we were first calibrating our instruments. We've become more precise now in our measurements.
2) Because a bald barbie vag-area made us feel icky, every time we saw it.
We'd also like to reiterate that the naked woman's character name was "Trash". A point we feel should have warranted another point deduction had our instruments been up to snuff.
DeleteFailing to appreciate Linnea Quigley doing her thing = -1,000 points.
ReplyDeleteIronic or non-ironic, a naked Trash is about 50% of what makes Night of the Living Dead something you can still watch today. It's like deducting points for making Kelly LeBrock out of magazines in Weird Science.
Perhaps you should re-run the measurements post re-calibration?
Ha! Nice try. Seeing as how we take the "Progressive" approach to the scorecard, we found it really hard to get past the "I fantasize about old men raping me in a graveyard" scene, which in 2013 is largely considered a negative, likely compounded by the gratuitous full frontal prosthetic nudity. (Again, this is our best guess as our machines run of a sophisticated nanobot technology that is constantly evolving based on contemporary cultural norms). As we run the numbers through the (now smarter) machine again, we do see that, if you aggregate for the difference in social acceptability of rape nudity, it likely would have resulted in a more positive score circa 1988-The Birth of Grunge Music. (We don't have a year for that and neither does the computer. Damn you nanobots!) It appears that in 1988, these scenes would have likely registered a positive score of +17pts for each scene, but the machine remains adamant on the current numbers, and, in fact, chided us for asking for a re-calibration of the current score circa 2013,
DeletePersonally, I'd like to make out with your awesome machines. A naked woman named Trash can never be a positive.
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