Dance ’til you drop… dead.
Directed by Ellory Elkayem.
Written by William Butler and Aaron Strongoni.
AKA
Return of the Living Dead 5: Rave to the Grave
Charles Garrison (Peter Coyote) delivers a drum of Trioxin 5 to a mortuary but the people he’s selling it to want to test it. They test it on the corpse of a woman but it doesn’t work so they try it on a man. The man is reanimated, asking for brains, then the woman comes back to life and attacks one of the buyers. Then another corpse springs to life and kills the mortician (Sandu Mihai Gruia) and Garrison himself. Two of the buyers survive, Gino (Sorin Cocis) and Aldo Serra (Claudiu Bleont).
Halloween is coming up and there’s a rave happening. Julian Garrison (John Keefe) receives news of his Uncle Charles’ death from Coach Savini (Ricky Dandel) at high school. He and his girlfriend Jenny (Jenny Mollen) find the last two drums of Trioxin 5 in his uncle’s attic. Unknown to them, Gino and Aldo Serra are looking for the remaining Trioxin 5.
Julian and Jenny turn to their friend Cody (Cory Hardrict) for help and show him the drum of Trioxin 5. He offers to take a look at it in the lab.
Gino and Aldo Serra break into Julian’s uncle’s house, finding the one remaining drum.
At the lab, Cody tells them the drum contains something similar to the drug Ecstasy so Jenny’s brother Jeremy (Cain Manoli) tastes it and trips out for a moment. Cody convinces Julian that he won’t do anything with the stuff but when Julian and Jenny leave; Cody, Jeremy and Shelby (Maria Dinulescu) set about putting the Trioxin 5 into capsules to sell. They sell it to drug dealer Skeet (Catalin Paraschiv) who in turn sells it around the high school as Z (as in zombie).
Skeet warns some guys not to take more than one capsule but they don’t listen and it isn’t long before they’re wanting brains. Julian isn’t happy when he finds out what Cody and the others have been up to. Gino and Aldo Serra are closing in and approach Julian about the Trioxin 5.
With people transforming into zombies everywhere, are anyone’s brains safe?
The night of the rave arrives…
If you enjoyed Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis (2005) then you should enjoy this too; it sort of carries on from the fourth film and features some of the same characters/actors from it: Julian, Cody, Becky and Uncle Charles. Like Necropolis it’s fun and gory but falls short of the standard of the first three films in the series. Nice to see Tarman put in an appearance. Another highlight is a zombie biting a chunk out of a cheerleader’s arse; maybe that’s where she kept her brains. Some fans of the original three films may not like the step down the fourth and fifth films indeed are but personally I think they could’ve been much worse and I think they’re enjoyable if not perfect.
Also stars Aimee-Lynn Chadwick as Becky, Aurelian Surulescu as Guitarist, Maria Roman as Serenity, George Dumitrescu as Artie, Radu Romaniuc as Brett, Sebastian Marina as Dartagnan, Violeta Aldea as Rainbow and, of course, Mr. Stinky.
#the return of the living dead series:
The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
Return of the Living Dead: Part II (1988)
Return of the Living Dead III (1993)
Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis (2005)
Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the Grave (2005)
