La revanche des mortes vivantes

While a hitch-hiker seduces the driver of a milk tanker, a mysterious motorcyclist sneaks on board the vehicle and pours a bottle of liquid into the container; soon after, three young women drop dead, having drunk the contaminated milk. The three victims are laid to rest in a cemetery that just so happens to be the chosen illegal dumping ground for several barrels of industrial waste called MZ31. The toxic sludge seeps into the ground and reanimates the dead girls, who emerge from their tombs to take revenge on the living.

Despite non-stop female nudity and the occasional moment of extreme nastiness, French '80s horror The Return of the Living Dead Girls somehow still manages to be quite dull for much of its runtime, the plot dwelling too much on dreary industrial espionage and blackmail instead of gory zombie action. The script is terrible, and the acting poor, while Pierre B. Reinhard's direction is about what one would expect from a man whose movie career prior to this was... shall we say... not very demanding of style or imagination.

Trashy highlights include a woman getting a shoe heel in the eye (the wound spurting profusely), personal assistant Brigitte (Anthea Wyler) fondling herself before slipping into a jacket with massive shoulder pads, a prostitute molested by the undead before being shish-kebabed with a sword, a man having his manhood bitten off by a zombie, and a pregnant woman's stomach opening up to reveal her unborn baby. There's also fun to be had as the zombies use a doorbell before entering a house, go for a relaxing swim in a pool, and drive a car, all of which sounds daft, but can be explained by the film's twist ending, which -- trust me -- is far more ridiculous. These bits are admittedly fun, but quite a lot of perseverance is required to make it through to the end.