Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the Grave (2005)

Film Title: Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the Grave
Released: October 15, 2005
Directed by: Ellory Elkayem
Written by: William Butler & Aaron Strongoni

Starring: John Keefe, Jenny Mollen, Cory Hardrict, Aimee-Lynn Chadwick & Cain Manoli

Plot: The teenage survivors of Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis are now in college. When they come across a trioxin canister, one of the more entrepreneurial among them starts making a drug called Z from the contents, unwittingly turning those whose use it into the brain-craving undead.

IMDb: 3.2/10
Rotten Tomatoes: No score
My Score: 1.75/5

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the Grave, the fifth installment of the series, was filmed back to back with its predecessor, Necropolis. That being the case, the same cast (those that survived, anyway) and creative team was in place for both films. Rave to the Grave is probably the better movie, though. That's not say that its good, because it isn't. The movie opens with Peter Coyote attempting to sell one of the trioxin canisters he stole from Hybra Tech at the end of Necropolis to a group of Russians. This is a reversal from the beginning of that movie where he was buying the canisters from a group of Russians. Anyway, he gets killed by a zombie during the transaction, as does one of the buyers. Coyote's nephew, John Keefe, and his friends Cory Hardrict and Aimee-Lynn Chadwick, the only survivors of Necropolis, are now together in college, although they seem to have no memories of anything that happened in that film. For example, Coyote kidnapped one of Keefe's friends, turned his dead parents into zombie cyborgs and was responsible for his younger brother's death but is upset when he finds out Coyote died. After Keefe is given the news of Coyote's death, he goes to his house and discovers a secret room in the attic with the remaining trioxin canisters. Not knowing what they are, he and his girlfriend Jenny Mollen take one of them to Hardrict, a computer genius in the previous film and now a chemistry expert, to analyze it. He discovers that it has very similar properties to the street drug ecstasy. Keefe and Mollen want to turn the canisters into the authorities but Hardrict, along with Mollen's brother Cain Manoli, decide to make a street drug called Z out of it before it gets confiscated and make some quick cash. If you've seen even one Return of the Living Dead film you know that any exposure to trioxin results in you being turned into a zombie and it is no different here. Once Keefe and Mollen discover what Hardrict and Manoli have done, its too late as they have a full scale zombie uprising on their hands. To complicate matters, its Halloween and Manoli, who is a DJ, is throwing a huge rave where the drug is being distributed freely. Due to the costumed nature of the holiday, most of the zombies go unnoticed until they start eating their victims. The Russians from the beginning (Claudiu Bleont and Sorin Cocis) are bumbling Interpol agents who spend most of the movie trying to retrieve the remaining canisters. What makes Rave to the Grave better than Necropolis is that the level intentional comedy and absurdity has been ratcheted up. A zombie getting decapitated with an electric guitar, the cartoonish convulsions of those high on Z, and the "tarman" zombie from the canister trying to make his way to the rave to join his undead brethren holding a sign on the side of the freeway that reads "Rave or Bust" are just a few examples. Needless to say, nobody stops for him. Much of the intentional comedy comes from the inept Russians and their interactions with the Americans and each other. Not that any of the jokes are particularly funny but they do give a generally more lighthearted feeling to movie. Rave to the Grave also sports more gore than the previous film and contains nudity, something which was absent from Necropolis. I guess the boob factor was okay in this one now that the kids are out of high school and in college. Not that I'm saying nudity makes a movie better but it certainly doesn't hurt in this case. I rated Necropolis 1.5 out of 5 stars and since Rave to the Grave is better that than that one, but not good enough to be rated a 2, I've split difference and given it the odd rating of 1.75.