Final weekend was Halloween. An evening for creeps. A night of shrieks. For some scream queen royalty, they obtained one of many extra disagreeable sorts of frights. Richard Driscoll, who crowdfunded a sequel to the 1985 punk zombie traditional Return of the Residing Lifeless, printed the brand new movie on his web site. This got here to the shock to the unique solid, who had been hooked up to star within the follow-up. As a substitute it appears Driscoll opted to make use of AI to generate the movie, leaving followers and alumni extra aghast at him than the flesh consuming ghouls.
“This isn’t what we signed up for,” says Beverly Randolph on the Caffeinated Horror Dude podcast. “We obtained to get one thing on the market as a result of there’s a lot hate on us proper now.”
Resulting from some misguided paperwork, George A. Romero’s unique Evening of the Residing Lifeless was launched instantly into the general public area in 1968. Due to this, it enabled any director and studio, together with Romero himself, to develop ‘sequels’ to the collection no matter authorized declare. One of many extra adored successors is Return of the Residing Lifeless, the place a gang of punk youngsters take refuge in a morgue after a melting mind eater escapes containment. It has since stood by itself as a cult traditional, producing its personal sequels. This contains Brian Yuzna’s grotesque Return of the Residing Lifeless 3, which I principally deliver up as a result of it scared the shit out of me as a child.
In 2024, Driscoll, who operates his personal no-budget streaming service “DragonFLIX,” launched an Indiegogo web page for “TRASH’s REVENGE Return of the Residing Lifeless Universe.” In contrast to different fan tasks, this one had a big portion of the unique solid concerned, with stars Randolph and Linnea Quigley appearing as producers. It additionally threw in Quigley’s fellow Sorority Babe within the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama Michelle Bauer and the Oscar nominated Eric Roberts, who has seemingly been in the whole lot besides The Residing Lifeless.
From what Quigley described, this film was meant to be a mix of Sundown Boulevard and Rocky Horror. Trash, Quigley’s character who was final seen as a nudist zombie, had change into a Norma Desmond recluse, relishing within the glory days of her mind consuming spree. This sounds unbelievable. However after some confusion and radio silence between the solid and director, this unbelievable film didn’t come to be.
Final Halloween night time, Driscoll pushed out The Return of the Residing Lifeless: Aftermath, an nearly fully AI generated heap of rotting flesh. The outcomes gained’t shock you. Robotic line supply. Nonsensical sequence of occasions. Object impermanence. Every part’s moist. Everybody seems to be shocked. At one level the video simply flips round such as you’re watching on a cellphone somebody dropped. And whereas the Return solid didn’t movie any of this footage, their likenesses are peppered all through.
“It turned out to be a fiasco,” says Quigley. “I warned him, “No matter you do, don’t do any AI, as a result of individuals don’t prefer it, the followers don’t prefer it.””
Residing Lifeless alumni, even those that weren’t hooked up to this movie, have spoken out towards Aftermath. They appear most involved in regards to the present and continued use of their likeness, on condition that Driscoll has seemingly pivoted ‘Trash’s Revenge’ into a further undertaking. Randolph encourages those that offered any funding to ask for a refund by way of their bank card firm. Whereas Romero’s unique movie was public area, Return was not. Randolph additionally encourages Amazon, who purchased MGM in 2022, to take authorized motion.
