Original Night Of The Living Dead screenwriter John Russo Write the original story for this 1985 splatterpunk classic as a straight faced follow up to the hit 1968 movie. Tobe Hooper was originally set to direct, but when he dropped out of the project Dan O'Bannon was drafted in and set about a radical rewrite to differentiate it from Romero's movies. The end result is a classic of the zombie genre that delivers a good laugh with its silly, over-the-top nature. A mysterious military chemical is accidentally released into the atmosphere by a couple of numbskull employees at a medical supplies warehouse. Pretty soon the dead are coming back to life with a craving for human brains, leaving warehouse manager Clu Gulager to battle it out for survival alongside a mysterious mortician (Don Calfa) and a gang of partying punks . The movie is notable for featuring Linnea Quigley stripping off in a cemetery and dancing naked on top of the graves, as well as its soundtrack which features songs by The Cramps, The Damned and Roky Erickson amongst others. Allan Trautman who has worked with Jim Henson and The Muppets performed as the "Tarman" zombie, and contrary to popular belief the characters of Burt and Ernie in the movie are not named after the puppets from Sesame Street, that is just a coincidence.