I posted about this movie last week on social media. I was letting people know it was supposedly coming out on Halloween, and that they should be skeptical before they spend their money on it. That post (and the post over on Instagram) got a LOT of blowback from people who said I didn’t know what I was talking about (to put it more nicely than some people did). Not from everyone, but from many confidently wrong people.
But what happened over the weekend? The Return of the Living Dead: Aftermath was released. And the reactions I’ve seen from the people who have watched it are about what I expected.
I’m not happy about being right. I’m just sad about the state of the franchise.
Full disclosure: I have NOT seen The Return of the Living Dead: Aftermath myself. I have been more than skeptical about that situation for a very long time, and I don’t want to spend money on it. Not even for research. I’ve researched everything else about the mess that is the current state of The Return of the Living Dead franchise for the past few years, but I’m not going to pay to watch this movie.
Here’s a brief of a background:
The Return of the Living Dead: Aftermath was released by DragonFlix on their own site on November 1, 2026. It was supposed to go online Oct. 31, but “technical issues” pushed it a day. The movie was made by Richard Driscoll, the same person whom you might have heard was making a movie titled Trash’s Revenge.
From what I was told by a source who asked not to be quoted, the director of Trash’s Revenge saw that the original idea for that movie couldn’t be done. The opening sequence of that film (which described the aftermath of the events of the original movie) was expanded, and that’s what the movie Aftermath became.
Trash’s Revenge is still announced as happening, but it’s now going to be a “documentary” on Linnea Quigley (when I use quotation marks, that means I’m supremely skeptical of the thing in quotes). It’s scheduled for Nov. 20.
Neither of those movies have anything to do creatively with the other “sequel,” which is/was being directed by Steve Wolsh of Living Dead Media. The trailer you saw with Tarman and a Christmas Tree? That’s Wolsh’s movie.
Living Dead Media (LDM) was sued by the original actors of the 1985 movie for LDM using the actors’ likenesses on merchandise. LDM originally tried to sue the ROTLD Originals, basically for interfering with LDM’s business, but that case was dropped. Then the Originals sued LDM to get them to stop using their faces on merch, and LDM filed a cross complaint. Long story short(ish), those two sides decided to settle, which was announced in July of 2026. Details of the settlement aren’t public, but some of the parties involved aren’t thrilled about it.
The judge declared in a tentative ruling that even though LDM “asserts rights to control movie production or sequels, the official chain of title resides with MGM.” But since there was a settlement and request for dismissal by the Originals’ lawyer after that, it’s not clear what will happen with Living Dead Media’s movie.
As for Driscoll and Dragon Studios, court records show they were included in a cross complaint by LDM, and that specific part of the complaint is not part of the settlement nor of the dismissal.
For more on the history of this debacle, I wrote a lengthy article a while back. It ends at a certain point (when the legal case prevented people from talking to me and when I saw the early previews for Trash’s Revenge), but what I’ve written here in this article should basically catch you up to now. Read it here.
