This week, Lionsgate will bring a pair of horror cult classics to Blu-ray for the first time with all new special features, as part of their Vestron Video Collector’s Series.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Vestron Video was a pioneer in the home video market, releasing cult movies, B movies, and the Cannon Films library to VHS, among other things. They were the original home video distributors of Dirty Dancing, Monster Squad, and An American Werewolf in London. Defunct in 1992, the label and some of their titles are back through Lionsgate, starting with September’s releases of Blood Diner and Chopping Mall.
This week sees the release of Return of the Living Dead 3 and CHUD II: Bud the Chud. Lionsgate Home Entertainment have provided ComicBook.com with a brief, exclusive clip from the brand-new special features on Return of the Living Dead 3, featuring director Brian Yuzna and screenwriter John Penney asking the age-old zombie movie question: “why brains?”
Directed by Yuzna, Return of the Living Dead 3 was released theatrically (with a significantly toned-down R-rated version) and in an unrated edition on VHS in 1993.
When zombie movie pioneers John A. Russo and George A. Romero couldn’t agree how to handle sequels to their 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead, the pair agreed to part ways and make their own, with Romero’s sequels being the Dead movies (Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, and so on), and Russo’s sequels the Living Dead franchise.
(Of course, due to a trademark snafu on the 1968 original, there have been plenty of imitators almost from the start, and almost no legal way to prevent them from creating all kinds of brand confusion over the years.)
While the first two Return of the Living Dead films were a bit campier than the Dead movies, with a lot of comic relief, slapstick humor and even the occasionaly wink at the audience (the Romero movies exist in this world, and are based on a true story), the third movie shifted out of that gear, pursuing science fiction and romance more than comedy as its subgenre.
In Return of the Living Dead: Part II, the chemical Trioxin turned people into flesh-eating zombies. Now, the government is trying to control these unstoppable cannibalistic killers in Return of the Living Dead 3. When a young man uses the chemical to bring his girlfriend back to life after a motorcycle accident, she is driven to eat the only thing that will nourish her…human brains! She tries to stop her own feeding frenzy but a chain reaction has already begun, as hordes of undead are unleashed from their graves!
Blu-ray includes all-new special features, including an audio commentary with Actress Melinda Clarke and Special Make-Up Effects Artist Tom Rainone; a conversation with Director Brian Yuzna and Screenwriter John Penney; and interviews with Special Effects Artists Steve Johnson and Chris Nelson and Editor/Post-Production Supervisor Christopher Roth, and will be available for the suggested retail price of $34.97.
You can get it at your local home video retailer tomorrow, or pre-order it on Amazon today.
