Return of the Living Dead/YMMV
- Crosses the Line Twice: A bunch of zombies attack a pet store in the second movie (though they are clearly gnawing on plush animals).
- Crowning Music of Awesome: Trioxin. Doubles as a Bootstrapped Theme.
- The first film is notable for its entirely punk-rock soundtrack, particularly The Cramps' punk/surf rock-pastiche "Surfin' Dead", and for its clever and haunting use of Roky Erickson's "Burn The Flames"; see Murder by Cremation.
- Ensemble Darkhorse: Tarman, who could be considered the mascot for the series as a whole. He is also the only character to have a toy made of him.
- Ethnic Scrappy: The antagonists in the third movie consist of a group of offensive Mexican stereotypes.
- Averted with Waterman, however. While, yes, he's a homeless black man, he's also genuinely compassionate, to the point that he can resist the hunger with effort, unlike every other zombie in the franchise.
- First Installment Wins: The first movie is by far more well known than the other four.
- Follow the Leader: This movie was unofficially spun off from Night of the Living Dead.
- Memetic Mutation: Zombie movies changed after Return. Number one: zombies want braaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiins.
- Newer Than They Think: This franchise started the Brain Food thing.
- Older Than They Think: This series had fast zombies before fast zombies were cool.
- Seinfeld Is Unfunny: The idea of zombies wanting to chow on brains was a novel idea when the first movie came out. Nowadays, it's pretty much expected in zombie fiction.
- Sequelitis: The first is generally viewed as good, the second is viewed as a step down but an overall enjoyable movie, and the third is viewed as a good movie in the wrong series entirely. The fourth and fifth... they're Syfy original movies.
- Squick: The third movie. ESPECIALLY the unrated version, where things such as Julie ramming a glass shard through her palm are shown in horrific, unflinching detail.