Re-Animator

Re-Animator

H.P. Lovecrafts Re-Animator was originally written in the 1920's but was modernized for this 1985 re telling. Taking a lot of inspiration from Frankenstein (even with the sequel being called Bride of Re-Animator) this is a great eighties gorefest. Like Night of the living dead and Evil Dead Before it this has become a cult classic from a very low budget. I think its become more so famous for its effects than the film its self and another thing that sets it apart from a lot of eighties splatter films is that there is a lot of humor in it! something that at times is the films downfall. Re-Animator is the story of mad scientist Herbert West and his creation of a serum that gives life after death but with horrible consequences, the people who come back to life end up going fucking insane. These aren't traditional zombies that eat everything in sight they mostly just go crazy and murder people. 

Best bit.

best bit in Re-Animator would definitely be the special effects. Eyeballs popping out of skulls, fingers being bitten off and zombie cat fucked against a wall to have its brain smear slowly down. The best gag of the film is when West kills a professor who was going to take credit for his serum and then injects it in his severed head. the body and head come to life and that's when the comedy starts to come into the film. The body and head act like separate characters with the body crashing into walls and the head sitting in a dish of blood looking over un impressed. But THE absalute best bit is when the head/body combo takes hostage the deans daughter, strips her naked and ties her to an operating table. She awakes to see the headless body infront of her ad begins to scream as the head rasply says "thats it! more passssssssssion"  as body lowers the head between her legs, a head giving head....... lol

Worst bit

Something that kind of annoyed me about the film is it feels kid of dated. It was only made in 1985 but it feels older than that, some movies from the seventies feel fresher than it. Everyone's clothes and hair is just old looking and looks more early seventies than mid eighties. Kind of looks like the set of murder she wrote with more blood and heads giving head, thank god Angela Lansbury wasn't around for that. One other thing that kind of grinds my gears is the comedy element that comes in roughly in the second act, its good and all but I think it would have been a stronger film if it focused more on the pure horror elements and less on the body walking around with its head in a bag and when he takes it out it says "Ahhh thats better" because the gore is really fucking good.

What it means to me

Hmmm I only seen this one not too long ago about 2 years maybe, picked it up on dvd. Always seen it in Fangoria an American horror magazine and the actor that played Herbert West is always going to horror conventions so I thought it must be good if it has this big a following, it is a great film but I gotta admit I was a little let down, little too much drama, not enough gore.

Summing up

A great splatter horror only let down by a bit too much love story relationship stuff, but the gore is really fucking good and the character of West is great and steals the show, see it!