Re-Animator (Stuart Gordon, 1985)

I’m gonna let you in on a secret here. I didn’t like Re-Animator the first time I saw it. I didn’t know what I expected, probably something way more extreme and gruesome – at least after watching classics like Zombie Flesh-Eaters and Dawn of the Dead/Day of the Dead before diving into this horror-comedy directed by my – nowadays – favorite director Stuart Gordon. The humor is quite quirky, the special effects are in a comic book style, the actors are far from subtle – but after watching a lot of similar movies I’ve come to realize that this is exactly why Re-Animator have reached so far in people’s consciousness. It IS a comic book adaption in moving pictures by a Lovecraft story, nothing else.

The story… I guess everyone knows it. A very young Jeffrey Combs plays medical student Herbert West who’s just escaped Switzerland after his mentor there died a terrible, eye-popping death, in front of the faculty. What West is really doing is to come up with a way to re-animate dead people, and now he’s doing it in the basement of fellow student Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott)! Dan is also the boyfriend of Megan (Barbara Crampton) who’s also the daughter of the head of the school! Soon chaos strikes and Herbert and Dan suddenly have a lot of newly-dead people to take care of…

The biggest flaw of Re-Animator is the part between the first scene set in Switzerland and the cat-sequence. I’m not totally sure why, but it lacks energy there. It’s just like everyone involved felt that this is just something they need to keep the story going until the fun start. When the cat hits the fan it gets crazy, creative, the actors comes alive – and that’s the Re-Animator I consider pure genius. A lot of the second part is set in a quite confined space, which I totally forgot, and the morgue is a great place to make a story like this work. The script is crisp and the actors works like there’s no rest. The pure intensity in Jeffrey Combs is legendary, Bruce Abbott is an excellent straight man and Barbara Crampton is both an adorable heroine and a cool horror icon.

The true star however, is David Gale as the sinister, dangerous, creepy Dr. Carl Hill – he’s also a possible sexual predator, which makes his persona so fucking freaky. While I still think most of the head-effects in his case doesn’t work (I really never bought that legendary, iconic scene, where he’s holding his own head in front of him), his acting makes it come alive. Robert Sampson as Dean Halsey is also fantastic; he’s going from a stiff, conservative man to a raving dead lunatic! So cool!

Gore? Yeah, more than I remember actually. There are some really grisly scenes – and even if a few of them look very hokey now, there’s still punch in them. I just love it when it goes to far, when you think the gore will end – and then it continues with more blood and more coolness. That’s a wonderful shock value! The make-up effects of the zombies is very nasty, almost… yeah, realistic. You see all arrays of people here – and the majority of them are totally naked! Fun, fun fun.

After revisiting this on Elite’s very good-looking DVD I hope there’s a new blu-ray on the way (which Second Sight in the UK promised at some point, haven’t seen one yet – and I guess there’s a US blu out, but I’ll wait…))  – and where’s the hardly talked-about Bride of Re-Animator? I would love to see that one on blu-ray also! Maybe one day, one fucking day…

Comments

[Megatron]

"I’m gonna let you in on a secret here. I didn’t like Re-Animator the first time I saw it."

I never seen it...yet.

"The humor is quite quirky, the special effects are in a comic book style, the actors are far from subtle – but after watching a lot of similar movies I’ve come to realize that this is exactly why Re-Animator have reached so far in people’s consciousness. It IS a comic book adaption in moving pictures by a Lovecraft story, nothing else."

Ah....a horror comedy.

I wonder if Stuart Gordon will do the same with Pickman's Model?

"The pure intensity in Jeffrey Combs is legendary,"

Yeah, Combs can be intense.

"Gore? Yeah, more than I remember actually. There are some really grisly scenes – and even if a few of them look very hokey now, there’s still punch in them. I just love it when it goes to far, when you think the gore will end – and then it continues with more blood and more coolness."

I have noticed that Stuart Gordon doesn´t hold back in the gore department, just look at some scenes in Fortress(1992), or when Henriksen cuts out Rona De Riccis tongue in The Pit and the Pendulum(1991), gruesome scene.

"After revisiting this on Elite’s very good-looking DVD I hope there’s a new blu-ray on the way (which Second Sight in the UK promised at some point, haven’t seen one yet – and I guess there’s a US blu out, but I’ll wait…)) – and where’s the hardly talked-about Bride of Re-Animator? I would love to see that one on blu-ray also! Maybe one day, one fucking day… "

Well, you never know Fred, it might happen, good review and thanks.

[Fredrik]

What about "Beyond Re-Animator"?

[Stolf]

great movie that really grows on you. second sight is supposed to release both re-animator and bride of re-animator next year i think. so i'm also holding out for those even thou the US bluray is pretty cheap now