More brains...!
- The Tar Man. For such a largely comedic film, the scene in which he first appears is undoubtedly the most terrifying across the entire franchise. This is attributed to not only his grotesque outer appearance but the complete absence of humor when he's onscreen. Nothing about him is a laughing matter. Unless you count when Burt decapitates him with a wooden bat.
- He's even more unsettling in the novelization where he takes a page from the "send more" ghouls and disguises his voice as an injured person trapped in the warehouse basement in order to lure Tina downstairs so he can ambush her better. And most thought his problem-solving abilities with the makeshift winch were unnerving enough...
- The Half-Zombie's conversation with Ernie is genuinely creepy and brings up some rather disturbing possible implications. If it hurts being dead, is there the possibility that the afterlife in Return of the Living Dead is actually being stuck in your corpse slowly rotting away, and being a zombie just allows you the method to temporarily relieve the pain of rotting away?
- It is more likely that being forcibly reanimated and trapped in a decaying body is what's causing the pain.
- Want a high-octane version of that nightmare fuel? It happens in real life too - though, mercifully, not for long. Rotting away in excruciating pain is the final stage of highest-dose acute radiation syndrome.
- It is more likely that being forcibly reanimated and trapped in a decaying body is what's causing the pain.
- This is a truly disturbing bit of Fridge Horror to consider. The corpses sealed in the canisters were put there because the military found it impossible to kill and all they could do was confine them. So from 1968 to 1984 those corpses were trapped in small, confined, dark tanks, unable to move, unable to see, unable to hear but fully able to think and contemplate their existence, as well as feel themselves rotting away and thus being in a state of constant, unending pain and not even able to scream. Fast forward to the movie when Frank and Freddy break the canister holding the Tar Man and he's set free, but not before being subjected to the feel of his rotten flesh melting off of his bones before finally getting loose.
- Also, earlier in the scene when Frank shows Freddy the canister's contents, the not-yet-melted Tar Man is presumably fully capable of moving when they peer through the canister window at him. Yet he doesn't move in the slightest, even though it's the first time he'd have been exposed to light in ages. He'd heard the two men enter the cellar, and kept still ''in ambush', in the hope that they'd get curious enough to open the canister so he could eat their brains.
- Frank and Freddy's deterioration after being exposed to the trioxin. At first they're just fine, but soon they start looking pale and once the yellow cadaver has been dealt with, Freddy mentions he's not feeling well and it all goes downhill from there; soon they can barely move, are shivering uncontrollably, and are essentially dead but conscious. Then rigor mortis sets in and they can't even be moved without it being agonizing, with their muscles tearing and blood pooling. By the end of it, just existing is agony and all they can do is just scream in pain. Worst of all, they only get a few seconds reprieve before turning fully and needing to eat brains to stop the pain.
- Sure, it's funny, but "Send... more... paramedics". These bastards are smart enough to fake distress calls.
- The idea that, no matter how much damage you inflict or what you do, the zombies will never die. Headshot? Nothing. Dismemberment? Just more pieces to come after you. Nuclear strike? Good job, now you've spread the infection even more. Extinction just seems inevitable.
- And these are smart zombies. They figure out how to ambush victims, and when they get at the paramedics and the cops responding to the crisis they get on the horn and tell the dispatchers to send more.
- Not only can 245-Trioxin Zombify the Living, but it can bring back any dead organic matter. In the medical supply, it brings back preserved butterflies and a split dog. It can even resurrect long-decayed bodies from the cemetery.
- The final scene of the film, with Tina and Ernie hiding in the attic just as Freddy bursts through (with his voice echoing as he says "Tinnnnnaaaaaa...."in a sing-song voice.
- The Dissonant Serenity of the horde of zombies standing silently, looking up into the sky as the nuke falls counts too, as the echo still continues.
