Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the Grave

Plot

The film opens a year after the previous film with Charles Garrison arriving at a mortuary with one of the canisters of Trioxin that he salvaged. He is greeted by a team of Russian government officials whose goal is to destroy the last of the canisters to avoid another incident. Nevertheless, one of them sprays three corpses with the gas, and revives them. Charles, is killed during the incident along with the mortuary owner and one of the government officials.

Jenny, Julian, Cody and Becky, the last four surviving the previous film, are now in college and they receive notice of the "murder" of Charles. Julian and Jenny go to search for and possibly sell what belonged to Charles, and they find the last two barrels of Trioxin. One of them is taken to Cody, who tests the chemical inside it. Jeremy, Jenny’s brother, tastes the chemical when he thinks that it is a drug similar to Ecstasy, but he goes into a spasm, in which he foams at the mouth, and later describes what it was like. The chemical is named "Z" for its "zombie-like" effect on the living.

Cody, Jeremy and Shelby extract the chemical from the canister and they put the liquid extract into pills which they sell to Skeet, so he can sell the drug around the school. While Skeet informs everyone to only take one pill at a time for health reasons, most take more than one pill at a time (which speeds up the process that causes humans to reanimate as zombies).

Gino and Aldo Serra, the only survivors from the beginning of the movie, recognize what is going on when they are shown the severed head of one of the zombies, and they go to question Julian, knowing that he is familiar with Trioxin, but he doesn’t tell them anything of the canisters that he and Jenny discovered. Sometime later, people are turning into zombies, and the drug is being passed around a rave, and getting out of control. Seeing no other option, Aldo calls in military assistance, but he is told that an American bomber plane is already on the way to the rave location.

Cast

Production

The film was shot immediately after Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis using the same locations in Romania and Ukraine. Peter Coyote, Aimee-Lynn Chadwick, Cory Hardrict, and John Keefe returned from the previous installment.

Release and reception

An edited version of the film aired along with Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis on the Sci-Fi Channel on October 15, 2005. The R-rated version of the film was released on DVD on March 20, 2007 by Lionsgate Home Entertainment.

The film has received generally negative reception. Film critic Felix Vasquez, Jr. gave the film a negative review, though writing that "this kind of bad film gives you perfect opportunity to improvise mocking".