The “first cut” of the film has more than 8 minutes of footage never released anywhere.
Return of the Living Dead 3, the 1993 horror-comedy starring soap opera mainstay Melinda Clarke, is getting a new, extended release more than 30 years after it hit theaters. Filmmaker Dustin Ferguson (Big Freakin’ Snake) announced on social media that he and producer Chris MacGibbon had acquired an old master tape that included a previously-lost cut of the movie. He plans for a physical and/or digital release soon, but the cut presumably will need a little restoration since it was stored on commercial-grade VHS. When it comes out, it will mark the third distinct version of the movie to get an official release, as the movie originally came to VHS in an “unrated” cut that had to be trimmed down to get a theatrical release with an R rating.
Per Bloody Disgusting, who first picked up on Ferguson’s Facebook post, the new cut will contain about eight minutes of never-before-seen footage from the movie.
“We have aquired the ‘lost’ 1st cut of Return of The Living Dead 3!” Ferguson posted to Facebook. “It features almost 8 minutes of additional, never before seen footage not in the Unrated version! No information exists anywhere about this! More details soon!”
Return of the Living Dead 3 got a much warmer reception from critics than the second film in the franchise, but made just over $50,000 at the box office against a reported $2 million budget. Given that it was designed to be profitable on VHS, that wasn’t a huge problem, but the lack of fan enthusiasm seemingly cooled the studio’s interest.
After three Return of the Living Dead movies made between 1985 and 1993, there wouldn’t be another one until the straight-to-DVD Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis and Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the Grave, which were released back to back in 2005. Those movies were not received well by the cult fan base that the original trilogy had built up, and no further Return of the Living Dead movies have been made since. A reboot is supposedly in the works.
Humorously, the timing of the announcement comes 40 years to the day after the first Return of the Living Dead movie was set; the movie features a title card noting that it’s July 3, 1984.
In Return of the Living Dead 3, “A teen (J. Trevor Edmond) uses an Army chemical to revive his dead girlfriend (Mindy Clarke) after a motorcycle accident,” per the official synopsis.
Return of the Living Dead 3 was written by John Penney and directed by Brian Yuzna. It also stars Kent McCord, Basil Wallace, James T. Callahan, and Sarah Douglas.
You can buy Return of the Living Dead 3 on disc or digital, or stream it free on Freevee,Tubi, and The Roku Channel.
