Dan O'Bannon was film screenwriter and director on various projects.
Daniel Thomas `` Dan '' O'Bannon ( September 30 , 1946 -- December 17 , 2009 ) was an American film screenwriter , director , visual effects supervisor , and occasional actor , usually in the science fiction and horror genres . He also contributed computer animation to Star Wars , worked on cult classics such as Dark Star , Heavy Metal and Total Recall , and both wrote and directed the horror comedy The Return of the Living Dead . The Resurrected ( also known as The Ancestor and Shatterbrain ) is a 1991 American horror film directed by Dan O'Bannon , and starring John Terry , Jane Sibbett , Chris Sarandon and Robert Romanus .