User reviews

As an avid Zombie movie fan, I bought this with hi-hopes of fun, gore and shambling ghouls. I got a shambling movie, no gore, and no fun (with the exception of the kid-hero frying his hamster with a laser gun (made from a cunningly converted laser disc player). That alone saved the movie from a score of 1. On the whole it looks like school kids on a budget of their accumulated paper-round savings put the movie together.

Even as a self confessed zombie fan I could only watch it once. In need of a second opinion I handed it on to another zombie fan. He watched it once too; then threw it in the bin for me.

I've seen some God awful films in my time but this must rate as one of the most dull, then again, there was 'Zombie Aftermath.'

The story as Zombie films go is not particularly offensive, we've got the typical out of town reporter investigating some strange goings on in a run down chemical plant that's become a bit of an urban myth around town. But you know you're in trouble when any 'horror' film begins with an overlong montage sequence of stills from the video cover accompanied by a cheezy eighties soft-rock theme tune. Things only deteriorate from then on. The opening sequence is immensely shaky, with lumbering actors (no, these are not the ones playing the zombies,) crusty library music, jerky camerawork, little dialogue, (though when you actually hear the 'actors,' and I use the term loosely here, it's understandable,) and along with ploddy editing, the whole thing appears clearly worse than it already is. The Direction is so poor in fact, it had me reaching for the box to read the blurb on the back to possibly find out what the hell was going on.

Soon we're 'treated' to a Swat team shoot out (I wonder where they got that idea from?) but it appears no one told any of the cast, because they look like they're rehearsing for a school play. And it's understandable going by the crappy props they're given to 'shoot' with. It's hard not to be critical when a film reeks as bad as this one. Just when things don't look like they can get any worse the story line introduces some irritating school kids who start building Laser guns (ooh how fifties,) from their broken CD players, to help in the fight against the undead. Oh and the laser effects are truly amazing, the FX crew ought to be knighted, and perhaps given crayons instead of the felt pins they obviously used for the film, just in case they injure themselves, or horror upon horror, work on another film! Obviously the creators of this thought they'd make a quick buck from a genre that doesn't necessarily need a lot of capital to produce. But here the cutting of corners and cheapness of the whole production is painfully evident.

Those hoping for a cheap but entertaining zombie outing ought to look elsewhere because 'Raiders...' provides about as much entertainment as watching paint dry. Try instead Jorge Grau's highly recommended 'Don't Open the Window' (known as 'The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue' in the U.K.) or J.W. Bookwalter's rewarding cheapo 'The Dead Next Door.'

Buyers or renters beware, IVS U.K. have put together a half decent cover with clever packaging (unlike the one pictured above) that seems very reminiscent of early 'Evil Dead' and 'Return of the Living Dead' releases that will perhaps lure a few curious but misguided horror fans, but take it from me this was one film I (and many others no doubt,) could have done without seeing.

Investigative reporter Morgan Randall (Robert Deveau) discovers that crazy Dr. Kapek (Leonard Corman) is bringing the dead back to life; when his friend Shelly (Donna Asali) is abducted by Kapek's reanimated corpses, Morgan launches a rescue attempt with the help of elderly physician Dr. Carstairs (Robert Allen), a useless armed guard, and an irritating kid (porn-star-to-be Scott Schwartz) who has constructed a pair of ray-guns from an old laser-disc player.

I'm pretty tolerant when it comes to Z-grade movies, having seen more than my fair share of absolute stinkers over the years, but I still had to watch Raiders of the Living Dead over the course of several evenings thanks to its incredible ability to rapidly send me off to sleep. Atrocious acting, boring direction, disjointed editing, an over-reliance on The 3 Stooges, and particularly dreadful laser effects all go to make this a truly painful viewing experience that is only spared the absolute lowest rating from me thanks to one shotgun blast to a zombie head (it's not great but it's definitely the highlight of this tosh) and the film's hilariously bad '80s theme song.

"Raiders of the Living Dead" is a low-budget zombie rip-off that is inexplicably and consistently interesting; if nothing else, it has imagination and innovation on its side. A reporter and his partner scope out an ominous locale in the dead of night and stumble upon zombies. A child genius works on his doctor grandfather's laserdisc player and winds up creating a laser. And a zombified Scott Schwartz (the kid from "A Christmas Story"?) hijacks a truck for no reason and tries to blow up a nuclear power plant, only to be claimed by the zombie menace. While slow in spots, and sporting more of a 1980s look than a Sears catalog, "Raiders" exists in some weird limbo between "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things," "Burial Ground," "Return of the Living Dead II," and even "Zeder" (the climax takes place in an abandoned prison). Is it a masterpiece of cinema? Certainly not, and perhaps my generous "5" rating is due to the fact that I watched the atrocious "Reefer Madness" earlier today. Still, it is a diverting item with OK makeup effects, a cheeky attitude, and a toe-tapping, synth-heavy theme song.

Raiders Of The Living Dead is rather infamous and widely considered to be one of the worst zombie movies ever made. I can confidently say, I agree.

It's right there with The Zombinator (2012) and Hsien Of The Dead (2012) It wants so badly to be a Return Of The Living Dead movie but fails every stage of the way.

The plot is bare bones and is pretty terrible, the movie is full of incredible amounts of filler scenes, the soundtrack is laughable and there are barely even any zombies anyway.

Raiders Of The Living Dead would certainly fall into my bottom 100 movies ever made, it has not one single redeeming feature and was a chore to endure.

The Good:

Nope

The Bad:

CGI is awful

Loads of blatant filler scenes

Questionable soundtrack

Too few zombies for a zombie movie

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

The 3 Stooges scene was more entertaining than anything the movie creators did

If you're looking for one of those "so bad it's good" movies, then ROTLD is the movie you want. Featuring characters with no background or motivation beyond "reporter," "Grandpa" and "child genius," scenes of complete silence and - best of all - a villain "reveal" that makes Scooby Doo's "I would have got away with it, too, if it wasn't for you pesky kids," look complex this film is, quite frankly, an absolute stinker.

Worth watching if you've a few likeminded friends and a crate of beer handy, but other than that, this film is without merit. Zombie or horror fans expecting a "proper" horror movie should avoid at all costs.

My review was written in November 1989 after watching the movie on USA Network.

"Raiders of the Living Dead" is a very minor zombie picture, reviewed here for the record after being cablecast on USA Network's "Up All Night" series.

Picture was begun in 1983 by Brett Piper (credited for "inceptive effects and direction") under the title "Graveyard" and completed two years later by Independent-International topper Samuel M. Sherman.

Hodgepodge relies heavily on library music and weakly inserted verbal exposition to spin a tale of newspaper reporter Robert Deveau, who's stumbled on the mystery of zombies. Befriended by Donna Asali, he tracks the undead down to an island prison, abandoned for 40 years, where a mad scientist is still up to no good in reanimating corpses. Two kids, Scott Schwartz and Corri Burt, come to their rescue with laser guns Schwartz designed- as well as grandpa Bob Allen, sporting a trusty bow and arrow.

Timekiller doesn't make much sense but has a couple of spooky scenes in a cemetery and the prison. Zita Johann, who co-starred with Karloff in Universal's 1932 classic "The Mummy", pops up as a librarian telling Deveau about the prison's history.

A deranged doctor is resurrecting dead convicts as zombie, a insipid newspaper reporter investigate, and it's up to a kid with a weapon he made from a VCR to stop them. If that sounds ridiculously stupid, that isn't the half of it, my friend. The child actors are beyond horrible and the adult ones arn't any better, the plot is awful, the action pretty much non-existent, and just bad in every sense of the word. But sadly I've seen worse movies. I know, I know, even I don't envy me. I kinda dug the cheesy '80's them song.

Eye Candy: None in the main film, but the "Dying Day" version has nudity

My Grade: D-

DVD Extras: Disc 1) Sam Sherman Commentary on the final "Raiders of the Living Dead"; and the 80-minute "Dying Day" (with missing audio and poor quality throughout); that Sherman's company bought from Brett Piper Disc 2) the second version "Dark Night" (with missing audio and poor quality throughout); Stills gallery; "House of Terror" Promo; Theatrical Trailer; Trailers for "Mad Doctor of Blood Island", "Brides of Blood", "Beast of Blood", "Brain of Blood", "Blood of the Vampires", "The Blood Drinkers", and "Horror of the Blood Monsters"

Wow... The only thing i could recommend from this "movie" is the absolutely hilarious open titles theme track. It is without doubt the most inane, lazy and downright stupid song i think i have EVER heard in a film. If cheesy, half arsed 80's rock, with lyrics from a ten year old is your bag baby, then try and track it down. Please let me have a copy too!

Other than that, uh....stuff happens, some boy makes a laser gun from his grandpa's Laserdisc player to rule his neighborhood and i guess, murder bullies with. Some intrepid reporter ( WOAH! reporters? zombies? in the same film? Revolutionary! ) seeks out some other boring stuff about some guy trying to do some stuff to take over the world with some zombies, or something ...uh OH I'M ALREADY BORED!. And if you forgive these kinda movies their awful plot, dialogue and acting because you only "watch it for the gore anyway" YOU WILL BE SORELY Disappointed. i think there are about..............3 zombies, who kill one guy who was stupid enough to deserve it. No gore in that scene. They then get shot by the geek with the laser. No gore. One gets its head blown off by the reporter. about 2 seconds of bad gore. and thats about it really. People run around for a bit, say stuff to other people you really don't't care about, and it ends. I'm surprised that i gave it the time i have, but hell it's 12.30 a.m. and i have nothing better to do. Don't think this will fit into the same style zombie category as movies like Zombi 2. Zombi Holocaust, Creeping Flesh ( ad infinitum ). It isn't really a living dead movie. It's really a waste of everyone's time. Except the title track. THAT'S FAB!!!

I am a movie lover, and I really like horror films. This movie however, is the worst movie I have ever seen. The acting, plot, script, and director are terrible. The movie is so slowly paced that you could not pay me to watch it again. The opening seen alone takes practically 10 minutes to state it's purpose(it doesn't make much sense any way, so technically it doesn't even do that). The effects are virtually non existent, the dialogue is wretched, and anybody who is not brain-dead would be able to make a better film than this one.

Somebody told me it was going to be on TV for Halloween. It was reported that it was " the worst movie ever". I was excited to watch it, thinking that it would be bad in the way that classics like The Toxic Avenger or the myriad of slasher films from the 80s were. I was dead wrong! The only reason I watched the whole movie was because I didn't believe how incredibly terrible it was. There is a scene leading up to the "climax"(ugh!)that shows a man walking from one end of a wall or something to the other on-screen for practically 10 minutes in the dark.

Don't even waste your time with this movie and if you do,I guarantee you will never forget it. How this movie was ever produced is the 8th wonder of the world.

Well for starters it is a bad movie but it is fun.The score was great in the movie.Also the song that plays before the movie starts was so 80s and it was cool THE DEAD ARE AFTER ME YEA!Its a cheesy song alright I think also it was campy to, the Bad acting cool looking zombies. The zombies look like the dawn/day of the dead look going on there.There are a few fulci looking ones to you see them early in the film they are from another movie a better zombie movie Brett Piperer's DYING DAY!Well I say check it out if your in the mood for a campier not that bloody of a zombie film do see The DVD is great movie 6/10 DVD 8/10 thanks!

This is truly a movie for the die-hard B-movie fan. The camera work, dialogue, and everything else looks like it was done from the goodwill store prop and makeup department. Oh my what were they thinking here? There are people who look like they have on old Halloween paint on their faces. An old man who thinks he's playing cowboys and indians and two kids who invent a death ray from an old laser disk player…wonder if he put the plans on the internet…I have use for such a gadget. This review is as disjointed as the movie…but its sooooooo bad!!! I have seen better things and I have seen some worse things and this will have to be up there in the worse category. I don't know how to say it anymore than that!!! If you're just Looking to waste some time or want a movie that just runs in the background of a Halloween party for noise, this is the movie for you!!! radiofreetech.com!!!

A useless film, hardly any gore, no suspense, very bad acting, especially from the children and the plot is just so lame I can´t believe it. This film had no redeeming qualities whatsoever and no horror-fans can like this boring stinker. A given "1" and a film I shall never forget for its worthlessness. In fact the only worse movies I have seen are "Sister Act 2" and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2".

Samuel M. Sherman and Brett Piper whom collectively wrote the script and storyline, and also directed the movie together, really did not put together a good movie. Even for a mid-1980s movie, "Raiders of the Living Dead" was a swing and a miss. It felt like there was order to the events in the movie, and it felt very random and erratic.

The story was utter rubbish and the dialogue was pretty bad. So yeah, "Raiders of the Living Dead" was definitely not an impressive movie. Turns out that I had not been missing out on anything by never having watched this 1986 novie before now in 2024. And believe you me, when I say that I am never returning to watch the movie again. Nor is a movie that I would recommend you waste your time, money or effort on.

The acting performances in "Raiders of the Living Dead" were pretty amateurish, wooden and rigid. And that didn't really help to make the movie any more bearable to sit through, as if a lousy script and storyline wasn't difficult enough. Needless to say that I wasn't familiar with a single actor or actress on the cast list.

The effects in the movie were not good either, not even for a mid-1980s movie. The electrocution scenes were hilariously bad. They had me laughing hard.

This movie was not worth spending 86 minutes on watching. I was expecting more from a movie with a title such as "Raiders of the Living Dead", but writers and director Samuel M. Sherman and Brett Piper simply dropped the ball here.

My rating of "Raiders of the Living Dead" lands on a very generous one out of ten stars. This movie is abysmal.

I have seen a lot of movies, I have even seen a lot of sci-fi original movies and this BY FAR is the absolute worst piece of trash I have had the displeasure of wasting and hour and a half of precious time on.

This is one of those movies that as you are watching you are just thinking to yourself "could this be real, did someone actually think this was a good or even okay movie?" It started out fun and I could laugh at every ridiculous nuance of this sorry movie but around the hour mark I was completely lost and completely miserable.

The actors appear to be people related to the director or just someone he grabbed off the street, large portions of the plot go unexplained and the movie jumps from half baked idea to the next, some scenes are so dark you can't hardly even tell what is going on, and every scene is filled with gaping grand canyon sized plot holes. I just watched it a few hours ago and it would be hard for to explain to someone what exactly it was about.

The nonsensical knockoff title doesn't help either, I can just see the directors now "let's take the titles of two good movies and combine them." Raiders of the Lost Ark + Night of the Living Dead= Raiders of the Living Dead. Brilliant, forget the fact that No One actually raids the living dead in this movie.

I am not exaggerated one bit. This is undoubtedly the worst movie I have ever seen and the only reason I would ever even try and watch it again would be to prove to someone I wasn't lying about how bad it really is.

Oh sweet merciful Video Gods, why have you done this to me?

Okay, so here is the deal - Independent International head Sam Sherman buys Brett Piper's cheap-o zombie flick DYING DAY and decides to shoot new footage for it (featuring Scotty Schwartz!) to create RAIDERS OF THE LIVING DEAD, a film so convoluted that cut-n-run producer Godfrey Ho probably saw it and said, "What the hell is going on here?" Naturally, two story lines are working here. Storyline #1 - reporter Morgan Randall (Robert Deveau) is working on a story about experiments involving the living dead. Storyline #2 - young Jonathan (Scott Schwartz) builds a ray gun out of his grandpa's (30s western star Bob Allen) laserdisc player (!?!). The two scenarios crash together when grandpa picks Randall up off the street and he tells him his wild story and they all decide to attack the zombies. Confused? I hope so.

If you think trying to mix two films together is this film's biggest problem, you got another thing coming. Wait until you see the laser effects, which consist of scratching the actual interpositive according to Sherman on the commentary. It is not because they are incompetent he pleads, it is just that they had no time. All of this pales in comparison to the logic on display from Piper's section where Randall is attacked by zombies but survives. He is saved on the roadside by a female cop the next day and what does he do? Does he tell her what happened? Hell no! He goes into town, buys a sawed off shotgun, rents a room and then asks his female companion to accompany him to a screening of some THREE STOOGES movies. Do whhhhhhhhat?

Image Entertainment felt the need to release this in a 2-disc super special edition that contains 3 versions of the film. You bastards! One extra is DYING DAY, the original version of the film. This has Morgan Randall (Deveau again) on the run cross country from zombies for the past two years trying to escape a family curse. He ends up in New Hampshire and, after being hit by a car, ends up shacking up with a nurse before heading into town to buy a shotgun and hit the flicks for some THREE STOOGES (not seen this time). The nurse has feelings for Randall though and urges him to get to the root of this family curse since he is the last of the line. Turns out Randall's Great Great Grandfather had some sugar cane fields in Cuba. When ol' Grandpa got frisky with a slave's wife and she spurned his advances, he had her whipped to death and her husband when to Haiti and got this curse placed upon his boss. Damn you Great Great Granddad!

It is really fascinating to watch DYING DAY right after RAIDERS and almost made the experience of sitting though that one worth it. Almost. Brett Piper's initial film is decent enough and has a slight Lovecraft "Lurking Fear" vibe to it with the cursed family and all. It is kind of confusing as to why Sam Sherman went out of his way to re-shoot and eventually re-shape nearly the entire picture. This clocks in at 80 minutes and I'm sure he could have just shot some filler of zombies killing someone to crank it up to 90 minutes. Instead, Sherman junked most of the footage and I would say roughly 25 minutes of this appear in RAIDERS OF THE LIVING DEAD. It is a much more serious film and, while it wasn't a classic by any means, it could have been decent. Plus, it features more gore and nudity, which RAIDERS sorely lacked.

"I killed Felix with a laser beam from my granddad's video player!"

The theme song that plays over the opening credits is catchy, yet cheesy and hardly encouraging for the movie we've sat to watch. (The fact that this song and its chords turn out to reflect the majority of the soundtrack is not a point in anyone's favor.) The opening sequence, taking us to the 14-minute mark of the runtime, is wholly unnecessary. The film then exasperatingly dates itself with a grandfather's jocular dismissal of his grandson's "rock music," introduction into the story of a LaserDisc player - which as we will learn is a somewhat crucial plot device - and a plucky teen's ingenuity which we'll soon learn marks him as a hero of the picture.

Scene writing, and the connective threads weaving together story beats and plot development, are at best extremely sketchy and tenuous - specious, weak, and flimsy. The narrative as a whole is plainly dubious, and the pace is agonizingly sluggish; what few promising ideas there are in the story aren't enough to save this. Samuel M. Sherman's direction is as questionable the screenplay he co-wrote with Brett Piper. I don't want to make any assumptions about the assembled cast - it could very well be that they've simply been forced into performances that are beneath them - but suffice to say that the acting here is frankly a chore to sit through. And the movie may actually have been improved by dispensing with sound altogether, if for no other reason than that the dialogue is atrocious. This is essentially true from start to finish, but most painful of all in an entirely superfluous scene of gun fondlers waxing poetic over their mutual anti-life fetish and shared alarmist beliefs and conspiracy theories. Blech.

Special effects are perhaps best described as hideous, especially those depicting young teen Jonathan's "death ray." The makeup for the "living dead" is decent, at least, but that is hardly sufficient reason by itself to watch a movie. With that said, the only reason I stumbled onto 'Raiders of the living dead' in the first place, and to my great regret decided to watch, is that I discovered this to be the last film role of Zita Johann, best known for her role in the 1932 Universal classic 'The mummy.' I suppose that's also a reason to watch this, but her inclusion is more lamentable than gratifying: Johann appears in a single scene that accounts for only 3 minutes of the runtime, just shy of the 1-hour mark. I don't know how she got roped into this, but I feel bad for her.

In all fairness, this is clearly a very low-budget production, made by folks who just wanted to tell a story and have a good time, in an era when independent film-making was truly limited by the power of the studio system. I can appreciate that. Yet all the obstacles in the world can't absolve poor writing, direction, and sequencing, and 'Raiders of the living dead' overwhelmingly bears more flaws than it does value. Finding out that this movie exists was unfortunate happenstance; finding a place to watch it was bad luck; the actual viewing experience was all but torturous.

Even if you're a diehard fan of zombie flicks, or an especial admirer of Zita Johann, there's no reason to watch this. I pointedly recommend against giving it a try. 'Raiders of the living dead' is tiresome, unconvincing mediocrity through and through, and just isn't worth your time.

Super cheesy movie with a ridiculous plot a kid makes a laser gun out of a laser disc player. A mysterious guy is evading zombies from some dude who's creating them. I remember watching this on USA long time ago and I've had the elite entertainment DVD for many years now looking forward to the Blu-ray that's coming out thanks to Severin films. What's cool about this movie it's actually another movie called dying day by a guy named Brett Piper and apparently Sam Sherman who directed us and owns independent International pictures wanted to make a family-friendly zombie movie and it delivers because it's ridiculous I give it a solid 8 because it's so laughable remember it's not a serious zombie movie If you're looking for the Day of the Dead George A Romero you won't find that here.

An eerie film, not really too much in the way of horror. It is suspenseful. There is not much gore at all, actually I can only think of one person being devoured. It had some interesting plot points. If you are an avid collector of Zombie movies you will like this flick.

Some people said this movie is a B-type of movie that others may like.... NOPE WRONG!!!! This movie doesn't even have the redeeming quality of a B-movie this movie is a steamy pile of dog**** This movie puts the "B" in boring...

Its almost upsetting, someone in the cutting room would consider this to be anything besides ****, what the hell was the director trying to do here? Its not even like when a movie is so bad, its a laugh etc..

Like I said, no redeeming quality, its just ****

Its very simple, if you like to watch paint dry... then you'll love this movie.

Scott should have never agreed to doing this heaping pile of crap. I don't know what his management or Scott was thinking..

I'm forced to give it 1 star, when I would give it -5 stars.