John Keefe, Peter Coyote and Aimee Lynn Chadwick returned from the previous installment. The film takes place one year after "Necropolis" and the returning teenage characters, from the previous film, are now college freshmen. They discover that Tryoxin-5 can be used as a recreational drug named 'Z', but the drug will eventually turn the user into a zombie. The speed of "zombification" depends on the dose of Tryoxin consumed. An edited version of the film aired along with "Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis" on the SciFi Channel on October 15, 2005. As was the case with "Return of the Living Dead 4: Necropolis" switching to "Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis", "Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the Grave" was advertised as "Return of the Living Dead 5: Rave to the Grave" before removing the number 5 from the title. The R-rated version of the film was released on DVD on March 20, 2007 by Lionsgate.