Book Review: RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD By John A. Russo *** and a 1\2 out of *****

Published in 1979 to little fanfare, screenwriter/novelist John A. Russo's sequel to George A. Romero's Night of The Living Dead (1968) is a must-read for fans of the seminal film and the zombie subgenre. Russo, the screenwriter of the original Romero classic, opens the book, which is set years after the event of the original film, with a shocking scene of mass brutality, as a preacher and his flock systematically mutilate the victims of a bus crush so that they won't turn into zombies. From there, the story gets darker and darker, as Russo introduces us to a number of believable, if not very memorable, characters, and takes them through one nerve-wracking and harrowing situation to the next.

Reading the novel, it quickly becomes clear that Russo is not as interested in overt sociopolitical commentary as Romero, focusing instead on the brutality of living in a world turned on its head, and the struggle of decent people trying to survive without turning into monsters themselves. There's plenty of violence, which makes the novel not for the faint of heart. What isn't there is humor, as, like Russo's screenplay for the original film, this is a dead-serious take on the zombie genre that Russo and Romero more or less invented back in 1968.

Even if the prose is a little workman-like, this is a good, fast-paced, and immensely readable story, and a worthy if somewhat dated sequel to the original classic. Fans will surely find it fascinating.

* Russo originally wrote the story as a screenplay, then turned it into a novel. His screenplay served as the basis for Dan O'Bannon's film, Return of The Living Dead (1985). Russo then adapted O'Bannon's revised screenplay into a separate book/novelization with the same title. That book was released  as a tie-in to the film in 1985.

Text © Ahmed Khalifa. 2020.

Ahmed Khalifa is a filmmaker and novelist. He is the writer/director of the feature film Wingrave, released on Netflix, and the author of a number of novels and short stories, including the YA horror novel, Beware The Stranger, available on Amazon.