Bride of Re-Animator
| Bride of Re-Animator | |
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 DVD cover for Bride of Re-Animator. |
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| Directed by | Brian Yuzna |
| Produced by | Hidetaka Konno Keith Walley Paul White Brian Yuzna Michael Muscal |
| Written by | Characters: H. P. Lovecraft Screenplay: Rick Fry Woody Keith Brian Yuzna |
| Starring | Bruce Abbott Fabiana Udenio Kathleen Kinmont Jeffrey Combs |
| Music by | Richard Band |
| Distributed by | Wild Street Pictures |
| Release date(s) | France January 1990 (Avoriaz International Fantasy Film Festival) US February 22, 1991 |
| Running time | 96 min. |
| Language | English |
Bride of Re-Animator is an American horror film released in 1990. It was directed by Brian Yuzna and was written by Yuzna, Rick Fry and Woody Keith. H. P. Lovecraft wrote the original series of stories, titled Herbert West–Reanimator, from which the characters were derived. The plot roughly follows episodes "V. The Horror from the Shadows" and "VI. The Tomb-Legions" of the original series. The film stars Bruce Abbott, Claude Earl Jones, Fabiana Udenio, David Gale, Kathleen Kinmont and Jeffrey Combs.
Bride of Re-Animator is the sequel to Stuart Gordon's Re-Animator (1985) and is followed by Yuzna's Beyond Re-Animator (2003).
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[edit] Plot
Eight months after the events of Re-Animator, Dr. Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) and Dr. Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott) are working as medics in the middle of a bloody Peruvian civil war. In the chaos of battle and with plenty of casualties to work on, they are free to experiment with West's re-animation reagent. When their medical tent is stormed by the enemy troops, West and Cain return home to Arkham, Massachusetts. There, they resume their former jobs as doctors at Miskatonic University Hospital, and West returns to the basement laboratory of Cain's house to continue his research.
Using parts pilfered from both the hospital's morgue and from the cemetery conveniently located next door, West discovers that his reagent can re-animate body parts by themselves. He becomes determined to create an entire living person from disparate body parts. West discovers the heart of Megan Halsey, Cain's fiancée, in the hospital morgue. With the promise to use her heart to re-animate a new Megan, West convinces Cain to help him with his project. Also stored in the morgue is the rest of the evidence from the previous "Miskatonic Massacre". Inside, pathologist Dr. Wilbur Graves (Mel Stewart) discovers a vial of West's reagent and the severed head of Dr. Carl Hill (David Gale). Using the reagent, he re-animates Hill's head.
Meanwhile, police officer Lt. Leslie Chapham (Claude Earl Jones) begins investigating West and Cain. He bears a grudge against the pair, as they were the only unaffected survivors of the Miskatonic Massacre; the dead body of Chapham's wife was re-animated into a crazed zombie during the incident. Chapham suspects West and Cain were responsible. When he stops by their house to question them, he discovers West's corpse-filled lab and the two get into an ugly confrontation. A fight ensues and West ends up killing Chapham by suffocating him with a cloth. West then re-animates the police officer with the intention of covering up his crime. Chapham violently wanders out of the house and into the cemetery next door.
Hill also bears a grudge against West, as West was responsible for his decapitation; the destruction of his body; taking away Megan, whom he was obsessed; and having better theories about reanimation than himself. Using hypnotic powers, Hill commands Chapham to force Dr. Graves to stitch bat wings onto his neck, giving him back his mobility. He also extends his mental control to all of the zombie survivors of the Miskatonic Massacre.
When one of Cain's patients, the beautiful Gloria (Kathleen Kinmont), dies, West collects the last piece he needs for his creation: her head. With a complete body stitched and wired together, West and Cain inject the re-animation reagent into Meg's heart. While waiting for the reagent to take effect, a package is delivered to their house. West retrieves and opens it. From inside, Hill's winged head flies out. Simultaneously, all of the zombies he controls break into the house. West retreats back to the basement lab, where his creation, the Bride, has awoken.
A catfight breaks out between the Bride and Cain's current girlfriend, Italian journalist Francesca Danelli (Fabiana Udenio), whom he met in Peru. Cain rejects the Bride's love and sides with Francesca. Heart-broken, the Bride rips Megan's heart out of her own chest and then literally falls to pieces. West diagnoses this as tissue rejection.
Hill and his zombies force West, Cain and Francesca to retreat through the wall of the lab and into a crypt in the neighboring cemetery. Inside, all of West's prior test subjects arise and make their way towards him, stopping only when Herbert commands them to. The unstable crypt begins to collapse, trapping Hill, West and the zombies. Cain and Francesca manage to escape the debris and claw their way to the surface of the cemetery together. Hill, stuck in the debris, laughs manically, while Megan's heart, still in the hand of the bride, stops beating.
[edit] Cast
- Jeffrey Combs as Dr. Herbert West
- Bruce Abbott as Dr. Dan Cain
- Claude Earl Jones as Lt. Leslie Chapham
- Fabiana Udenio as Francesca Danelli
- David Gale as Dr. Carl Hill
- Kathleen Kinmont as Gloria
- Mel Stewart as Dr. Graves
- Irene Forrest as Nurse Shelley
- Michael Strasser as Ernest
- Mary Sheldon as Meg Halsey
[edit] The Re-Animated
- Marge Turner as Elizabeth Chapham
- Johnny Legend as Skinny Corpse
- David Bynum as Black Corpse
- Noble Craig as Crypt Creature
- Kim Parker as Crypt Creature
- Charles Schneider as Crypt Creature
- Rebeca Recio as Crypt Creature
- Jay Evans as Crypt Creature
[edit] Reception
Bride of Re-Animator was nominated for two awards by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films in 1991. It was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Horror Film and Jeffrey Combs was nominated for Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor.
[edit] Sequels
The film was followed by a third movie in the series, Beyond Re-Animator.
Stuart Gordon has been quoted on several occasions as expressing a desire to make a fourth installment 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 the deceased Vice President. However, the project was supposedly cancelled. The idea may not be totally dead as is hinted at in the final issue of the Hack/Slash vs. Re-Animator crossover where government agents approach West claiming his country needs him because the president is dead.
[edit] External links
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