Re-Animator
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Re-Animator (1985) is the first in a series of films based on the H.P. Lovecraft story . It stars Jeffrey Combs as Dr. Herbert West, a medical student who transfers from a school in Europe to the medical school of Miskatonic University to continue developing a formula to revive the dead. His testing of the agent leads to unintended consequences for West and his new roommate, Dan Cain. The movie has since become a cult film, mainly driven by fans of Combs.
Plot
After being expelled from a university in Zürich, Switzerland, Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) arrives at Miskatonic University in New England. He rents a room from a promising (but somewhat impractically minded) student, Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott). Cain is secretly dating Megan (Barbara Crampton), daughter of the medical school dean, Alan Halsey (Robert Sampson).
There is instant animosity between West and faculty member, Dr. Carl Hill (David Gale). In Zürich, West had been a student of a scientist who claimed to have invented a glowing greenish-yellow serum that can bring dead bodies back to life, a theory that Hill repeatedly dismisses. In the opening scene, West has brought this dead professor back to life with horrible side-effects. Undaunted, West continues his research of the serum at Miskatonic, first "re-animating" Dan's dead cat and later a corpse in the medical school morgue. The corpse returns to life and viciously attacks both West and Cain. The corpse also attacks and kills Dean Halsey who stumbles upon the scene. West re-animates Halsey, who also returns to life but in a zombie-like state.
Dr. Hill discovers West's plans, imprisons Dean Halsey, and forces West to continue the research with the end result that Hill himself will take credit for the serum's discovery. West kills Hill, decapitating him with a shovel, then re-animates both Hill's body and head. Hill escapes (his body carrying its own head), stealing the serum and sending the brainless Halsey out to kidnap Megan. (A few scenes earlier, Dan and Megan had discovered that Hill had been harboring a disturbing obsession for Megan.)
Cain and West track Halsey to the campus morgue where they find Hill's body holding its own head and molesting a restrained Megan. Cain frees Megan while West distracts Hill's two-piece body. Hill reveals that he has re-animated and lobotomised several corpses so they will do his bidding. In the ensuing chaos, Cain and Megan escape and West injects Hill's body with what he believes is a lethal overdose of the re-animation serum. Hill's body takes on a horribly monstrous new form and attacks West; his fate, however, is unknown.
As Dan and Megan run from the morgue, Megan is attacked by one of the re-animated corpses and killed. Dan takes her to the hospital emergency room but is unable to revive her. He injects her with West's serum but the story ends before we see the result of Dan's desperation.
Sequels
The film was followed by Bride of Re-Animator (as the name suggests, a parody of Bride of Frankenstein), as well as by Beyond Re-Animator.
Stuart Gordon has been quoted on several occasions as expressing a desire to make a fourth instalment in the series, entitled House of Re-Animator; this film would, he claims, be a political satire wherein West moves into the White House and re-animates a deceased Dick Cheney. In May of 2006, producer Brian Yuzna told Fangoria magazine that the film was indeed being made. Yuzna expressed his desire for a large budget in order to hire well known supporting actors, such as William H. Macy, for the film. In addition to House of Re-Animator, Yuzna hopes to film two additional sequels in order to form a second trilogy. [link]
Additionally, a semi-spin-off/parody of the original film has recently been made by James Raynor, a young British film-maker, entitled Angry and Moist: An Undead Chronicle. This short film follows the gory misadventures of Herbert West's hitherto unknown half-brother, Norbert Crest, played by Raynor himself (the film's tagline: Re-Animation. It runs in the family). This film is not, however, part of the official movie series.
Compared to Lovecraft's original
Ironically, Re-Animator is often considered to be one of the few (if not the only) accurate film treatments of Lovecraft's original work, despite its comedic approach to the material. Even more ironically, some of the weakest of Lovecraft's work was the inspiration for it.
Lovecraft originally serialised the story (entitled Herbert West: Reanimator) in the amateur press, in a magazine of one of his friends. In correspondence with others, he claimed to be unhappy with the work, only writing it because he was being paid five dollars for each of the installments. He was further unhappy with the requirements of the story - unlike his normal style, he was forced to end each installment with a cliffhanger. He also had to begin every of them by a recap of the previous episode.
Because of this, according to his letters, Lovecraft wrote the story more as a parody of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein rather than as an original piece of fiction. He drops in numerous Frankenstein references (even hinting at the poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, as Shelley did) while at the same time purposely making scenes overly violent, gruesome, and cliche.
Likewise, the movie is considered to be a great parody of traditional horror films because it refuses to take itself very seriously. Evident from the commentary track on the Millennium Edition DVD is the fact that the cast and crew had an enjoyable experience in making the film, despite several scenes that those not familiar with the overall tone of the film (the parody factor) might find morally objectionable or too violent. The film is indeed grotesquely violent, however, the violence is more in the vein of black comedy. The cast manage to give their characters surprising depth (a quality that horror films rarely exhibit). Also convincing are the obviously low-budgeted special effects.
The film was directed by Stuart Gordon, previously a theatre director in his hometown of Chicago. Gordon is best known for schlocky, low-budget but surprisingly humourous horror films. Others in his repertoire include Dagon about an evil spirit that has possessed a small seaside town, From Beyond, another Lovecraft adaptation, Fortress, starring Christopher Lambert and set in a futuristic Orwellian prison and The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, an adaptation of the Ray Bradbury short story starring Joe Mantegna, Esai Morales and Edward James Olmos.
Trivia
The film was released without an MPAA rating in 1985. As a result, it opened in a relatively few theatres, about 185, and did not earn much money.
Adding to the film's humorous tone, there is a Talking Heads poster above Dan's bed.
This movie is mentioned in the film American Beauty when characters Lester Burnham and Ricky Fitts are smoking marijuana in an alley.
Cast
- Jeffrey Combs - Herbert West
- Bruce Abbott- Dan Cain
- Barbara Crampton - Megan Halsey
- David Gale - Dr. Carl Hill
- Robert Sampson - Dean Alan Halsey
- Gerry Black - Mace (Miskatonic security guard)
External links
- [Angry and Moist: An Undead Chronicle], official site
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