While Romero’s films are social satires, The Return of the Living Dead is a cynical scream. It ends on one of the most bleakly funny notes in horror history, suggesting that no matter how hard you fight, the bureaucracy of the military and the persistence of chemistry will eventually turn everyone into a snack.

Before Dan O'Bannon wrote and directed this film, zombies were generally understood to be stopped by a shot to the head. O’Bannon threw that rulebook out. In this universe, zombies are:

The film is a time capsule of the 1980s Los Angeles punk scene. From the graveyards to the soundtrack, it’s drenched in subculture.