Re-Animator

Re-Animator (1985)

Runtime: 85 minutes (I saw the unrated version, of course, as it's the easy version to find and the superior version)

Directed by: Stuart Gordon

Starring: Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott, Barbara Crampton, David Gale, Robert Sampson

From: Empire Pictures

I'll be back Wednesday proper to make a pair of posts. For now, you can see me review this here for the first time as this is the first time I have seen this movie in years. The gory details are below: 

Of course I have watched this movie before, but it was only on one occasion and it was years ago. So, it was off to Netflix Instant to check it out. I imagine most are familiar with the story of how Herbert West-who is “brilliant but a little weird”, as the original trailer described him-ropes in the unwitting Dan Cain to perform experiments on reviving dead organisms, with the expected chaos when they try it on people, so I'll move onto talking about why I enjoy this cult classic like many do.

It certainly is outrageous in nature and it has many bizarre sights and moments (especially the final act) yet you go with it as the filmmakers boldly went full steam ahead in what I understand is a loose adaptation of the Lovecraft story. Even though he is strange and creepily obsessed with his neon green serum and his quest to reanimate people, Herbert West is still an enjoyable character and you see why even now Jeffrey Combs is a beloved cult actor. Dan Cain and Megan Halsey are a likable young couple who are dragged into a frightening nightmare while dealing with adults who are a drag and try to ruin their relationship... then those adults become pretty awful. Bruce Abbott and another cult favorite (Barbara Crampton) do a nice job with those roles too.

It was a low budget movie and yet all those splatter effects still look nice 31 years later. That is good when you have such a macabre Grand Guignol story such as this. There are plenty of memorable moments; it's not just “that one scene” w/ the severed head and Barbara Crampton. The important thing to note is that despite the subject matter, this is a pretty dark comedy and it actually is funny throughout-yet it is not too heavy into the comedy; they got the tone just right-even if at times you know you perhaps shouldn't. Throw in a Richard Band score that sounds even more like a ripoff of Psycho's score than the other films which have done the same thing (yet it's still rad), and this is a must-see for the horror fans that somehow have skipped this in the past.