The Return of the Living Dead
Two bumbling medical‑supply workers must race against time to contain a lethal gas leak that has reanimated the dead, before an unstoppable horde of brain‑hungry zombies overruns their town.
“They're back from the grave and ready to party!”
Synopsis
Two clumsy employees at a medical supply warehouse accidentally release a lethal gas into the air, causing the dead to rise as zombies.
Credits
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How many hands made this film
The scale of the collaboration
Principal cast & crew: 40
These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.
Why a floor?
This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.
Craft leads on file
Edited by Robert GordonShot by Jules BrennerScored by Matt CliffordDesigned by William Stout
Box Office
1985 · Box office
✅ Made its money back — grossed 3.6× its budget
Why 2.5×?
Cinemas keep roughly half of every ticket sold, and a wide release’s marketing often costs about as much again as the film — so a movie needs to gross around 2.5× its production budget just to break even theatrically. It’s a rule of thumb, not the studio’s ledger (home video and streaming come later).
Worldwide gross
$14.2M
US & Canada: $14.2M — 100% of worldwide · International: $3K (0%)
Opening weekend: $4.4M — 31% of its US run.
Opening week (7-day): $6.5M — 46% of its US & Canada run.
Peak 1,506 theaters
Also known as
- Return of the Living Dead - Verdammt, die Zombies kommen!de
- Verdammt, die Zombies kommende
- Le Retour des morts-vivantsfr
- Il ritorno dei morti viventiit
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Cast & Crew
40 unique people credited
Top billed cast
Supporting cast
18Cathleen Cordell
as Colonel's Wife
David Bond
as Radio Corpse #2
Derrick Brice
as Gunnery Sergeant
Paul Cloud
as Cop #2
Michael Crabtree
as Riot Cop #2
Robert Craighead
as Cop #1
James Dalesandro
as Paramedic #2
Drew Deighan
as Paramedic #1
Leigh Drake
as Dispatcher
John Durbin
as Radio Corpse #1
Ed Krieger
as Riot Cop #3
Bob Libman
as Tac Squad Captain
Allan Trautman
as Tarman
John Stuart West
as Riot Cop #1
Terry Houlihan
as Yellow Cadaver
Robert J Bennett
as Headless Tarman
Jerome Coleman
as Legless Corpse
Cherry Davis
as ½ Lady Corpse (voice)
Directors
1Writers
4Producers
1Other crew
5Parents Guide
AI Personalities
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