Re-Animator Movie Review

Welcome back to another review as another week has rolled on by. I'm sure you all know the routine by now, so lemme at least recap what's been going on thus far as far as the countdown goes: 10)A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3: The Dream Warriors 9)Friday the 13th Part 6: Jason Lives 8)Return of the Living Dead 7)Dead Alive (aka Brain Dead) And now with the next installment in the countdown, as told in the Joe Bob Briggs kinda review......

6)Re-Animator .... (which is a MUST SEE for any horror fan since it's sooo hard to find and let alone be able to view) Gordon gone off to do much more of a directing career (and in my humble opinion, the lesser talented of directors between the two of them) Re-Animator was Brian's first produced film which he still continues to do a lot of to this day. But he's also directed a few other horror films over the years in various franchises. Not only did he continue the Re-Animator franchise with it's two sequels Bride of Re-Animator and Bride of Re-Animator, but he's also worked on Progeny

This film is a def MUST SEE for horror fans that just enjoy that over abundance of corpses running around, if you enjoy any type of Zombie film (which Re-Animator technically isn't a zombie film, but does deal with the re-animated dead brought back to life) The gore and special effects is fantastic, the music is creepy and Jeff Combs (who plays the creepy lil re-animating Dr. Herbert West) is just great. You can currently find him as the voice of The Question on the animated series The Justice League, he's playing Kevin Burkhoff on The 4400 and has done various characters through many many Star Trek series. Not to mention the primary antagonist (and some suggest manipulative telekenitc mind control guy as well) David Gale who unfortunately died during heart surgery of the early 90's and wasn't able to complete anymore bad horror films for us :( This film is also a new twist on the zombie/undead genre, with a type of medical gore to it, not to mention a fun lil tongue in cheek humor at times.

The story: Dr. Herbert West is working on a serum that can prolong and defeat the dreaded "brain death" when the brain dies the body dies. So his serum is to defeat that but there comes bad consequences. The bodies of the dead do become re-animated, but becoming uncontrollable spazming beasts (and some say with the intellectual capabilities of a mentally retarded child to say)

So West pretty much gets kicked out of Switzerland for "giving someone life with his serum" and continues his studies in America. It goes from one thing after the next- the main goal is to obtain a dead body for his studies. Now mind, much unlike a zombie film, when the dead come back they do not spread like a virus. It stays only within the person that has been injected with the serum. The only thing is that these things are powerful and uncontrollable (except when they are controlled by the likes of Dr. Carl Hill, who not only wants the Dean's daughter (Megan Halsey {with quite an estute Soap Opera career}, who is also the girlfriend of Dan Cain - the roommate/sidekick of Herbert West the Re-Animator) BUT Dr. Hill wants to steal the serum to cheat death all for himself and all of the prize, money and fame to go with it.

Basically, West is so transfixed on perfecting his serum, he needs to find a dead body to try it on - the fresher the better. So he'll inject it into somebody, the original corpse goes out of control and kills somebody. It's victim needs to be injected to perfect West's work. Who never seems to comprehend his actions and is only focused on perfecting his serum and research. So, he himself is a lil mad scientist - but not the typical kind focused on ruling the world. THat role really is meant for Dr. Hill. So these spaztic retarded zombies are causing all of this trouble and messing up the lives of the innocent Dan and Megan until they themselves get all sucked into the re-animated drama

Memorable lines:

1)SWISS NURSE: "You killed him!"

WEST: "No, I did not. I gave him life."

2) WEST: "OVERDOSE!"

3) HILL: "You will do, what I tell you to - do."

4) DAN: "For God's sake stop!"

WEST: "Dan. Look out."

5)DAN: "What if we get caught?"

WEST: "What'll they do? Embalm us?"

6) WEST: "Who's going to believe a talking head? Get a job in a sideshow."

Things to look for:

Exploding eyeballs

Medical Tools Fu

Syringe Fu

Attacking Cat puppet

Decapitation via shovel

Megan's boobs and bush

Head giving head

Re-animated body turning face and saving the day

Intestines attacking

Crushed in and oozing head

Severed head thrown and smashed against a wall with exploding brains

Reusage of serum despite knowing what's going to happen

Worthless tidbits of info:

-A combined tale of three stories based on HP Lovecraft's (including Herbert West - Reanimator from the book "Dagon and other Macabre tales" ) And from one true horror fan to another, check out Lovecraft's stuff - very creepy for his day and age.

-Miskatonic University (where most of the film takes place) is a lil device that HP Lovecraft used a lot of in his stories. Such as the fictitious town of Arkham for example.

-The film's main score is an adaptation of Bernard Herrmann's Psycho

-Re-Animator was first contrived as a television series with 13 half-hour episodes but was instead sold as a film.

-Jeff Combs and Barbara Crampton went on to do another Lovecraft film -From Beyond

-The R rated version is 8 minutes longer (just because of a lot more dialogue) The unrated version is chop full of gore and the specially erotic scene at the end.

-25 gallons of blood were used throughout the film

-James Cameron's father plays a small bit part of a man with a damaged jaw at the hospital

-Posters of the Talking Heads in Dan's room (perhaps a lil joke of the other talking heads in this film)

-There was so much fake blood and meat within the head of Dr. Hill that is thrown against the wall -the crew was hiding behind garbage bags because they had no idea how far it would fly.

Final rundown of the film:

Pairs of boobs seen: Two

Body count: 5 plus one dead cat.

Gore factor: 7 out of 10 buckets of blood.