Okay, was it just me or was this movie a bit depressing.
I mean, I first watched it when I was 15...a typical hormonally messed up high school kid, no girlfriend and a ton of acne, going through all the typical mental problems 15 year old males go through.
Anyway, I turn on HBO and check out Return of the Living Dead 3, thinking it to be just another mindless slaughter movie, something to kill the time between getting sleepy and passing out.
Little did I expect this movie to not only have a gripping story, but one hell of an emotionally gripping story at that.

I guess I could relate to the characters, at the time the love of my life was a red headed gothic girl named Julie, who actually looked much like Mindy Clarke's "Julie Walker" character in the movie.
Anyway, the fact that she was fully cognative as a zombie actually introduced a very rare element of "humanity" into the deadly zombie genre.
Then, the fact that she was actually fighting her urges to attack humans, and the fact that she didn't attack her boyfriend...(J. Trevor Edmund) because of love....well, you've just introduced a touch of romance into a sea of gore.

And then, after they almost escape the military base, and you think that perhaps this movie is going to end on a hopeful note, the boyfriend is bitten, and then, in true Shakespearian fasion, they die together in flames, but not before the ageless final embrace.

Indeed, Return of the Living Dead 3 did something with a zombie movie that no other horror moive, with the exception of maybe Candyman had ever done, mate romance and horror, and NOT come out looking cheesy.
Yes, I suppose in the end Return of the Living Dead 3 would fall under the category of just another "B-rated" slasher film, but it is that touch of amore that will forever make it stand out in my mind.

Kaleb Kellum Muldervsscully79@aol.com