Re-Animator

Re-Animator
Directed by	Stuart Gordon
Written by	Short Story: H.P. Lovecraft Screenplay: Dennis Paoli William Norris Stuart Gordon
Produced by	Michael Avery Bruce William Curtis
Starring	Jeffrey Combs Bruce Abbott
Cinematography	Mac Ahlberg
Edited by	Lee Percy
Music by	Richard Band
Distributed by	Empire Pictures
Release dates	October 18, 1985
Running time	86 min.
Country	USA
Language	English
Budget	$900,000

Re-Animator (1985) is the first in a series of films based on the H.P. Lovecraft story "Herbert West: Reanimator". 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 the Zurich University Institute of Medicine in Switzerland, Herbert West arrives at Miskatonic University in New England in order to further his studies. He rents a room from fellow medical student Dan Cain, and converts the building's basement into his own personal laboratory. Cain, meanwhile, is secretly dating Megan, daughter of the school dean Alan Halsey.

There is an instant animosity between West and faculty member Dr. Carl Hill. Hill's theory of brain death bears a remarkable resemblance to that of West's mentor, Dr. Hans Gruber, a professor in Zürich. In the opening scene, West brings this dead professor back to life with horrific side-effects; a result, as West explains, of having given Gruber an overdose of his re-agent. Undaunted, West continues his personal research at Miskatonic, soon re-animating Dan's dead cat, Rufus. Upon Dan's discovery of this, West quickly recruits him as his partner.

Soon the two sneak into the morgue to test the re-agent on a human subject. The corpse revives and goes on a rampage, attacking both West and Cain before escaping into the autopsy room. Dean Halsey stumbles upon the scene and, despite attempts by both West and Cain to save him, is brutally killed by the re-animated corpse. Armed with a bone saw, West finally manages to dispatch that which he's only just brought back to life. Hardly fazed by the violence and excited at the prospect of a fresh dead subject to work with, West injects Halsey with the re-agent. Halsey returns to life, but in a zombie-like state.

Dr. Hill discovers West's work, imprisons and eventually lobotomizes Halsey, while forcing West to continue the research so that Hill can take credit for the serum's discovery. West kills Hill, decapitating him with a shovel, then re-animates both his head and body. Hill knocks out West and escapes, carrying his head, stealing the serum and sending the lobotomized Halsey out to kidnap Megan.

Cain and West track Halsey to the morgue where they find Hill molesting a restrained Megan. Cain frees Megan while West distracts Hill. Hill reveals that he has re-animated and lobotomized several corpses so they will do his bidding. However, Megan manages to get through to her lobotomized father, who fights off the corpses long enough for Cain and Megan to escape. In the ensuing chaos, Halsey is torn to pieces by the other corpses and West injects Hill's body with what he believes is a lethal overdose of the serum. Hill's body takes on a horribly monstrous new form and attacks West, who screams out to Cain to save his work before he continues fighting with Hill. West's fate 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. Just after the scene fades to black, Megan screams.

Cast

Actor	Role
Jeffrey Combs	Dr. Herbert West
Bruce Abbott	Dan Cain
Barbara Crampton	Megan Halsey
David Gale	Dr. Carl Hill
Robert Sampson	Dean Alan Halsey
Carolyn Purdy-Gordon	Dr. Harrod
Al Berry	Dr. Gruber
Gerry Black	Mace (Miskatonic security guard)

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 the deceased Vice President. 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.

Recently further information was revealed on Yuzna's website. The three new films have working titles House of Re-Animator, Re-Animator Unbound and Re-Animator Begins.

Compared to Lovecraft's original

Re-Animator is often considered to be one of the few (if not the only) film treatments that accurately preserve the feel of Lovecraft's original work, despite its comedic approach to the material..

Lovecraft originally serialised the story (entitled Herbert West: Reanimator) in the amateur press, in a friend's magazine. In correspondence with others, he claimed to be unhappy with the work, only writing it because he was being paid five dollars for each installment. He was also unhappy with the requirements - unlike his normal style, he was forced to end each installment with a cliffhanger and begin them with a recap of the previous episode.

Because of this, according to his letters, Lovecraft wrote the story more as a parody of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein rather than a completely 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 cliché.

Likewise, the movie is considered to be a great parody of traditional horror films because it refuses to take itself 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 (although actor David Gale had a difficult time with the infamous scene when his severed head is taking liberties with Barbara Crampton's naked body to where his wife walked out during a screening). The film is indeed grotesquely violent, however, the violence is more in the vein of black comedy. Also convincing are the obviously low-budget 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 humorous horror films. Others in his repertoire include Dagon, loosely based on Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth, 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 non-horror) The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit, an adaptation of the Ray Bradbury short story starring Joe Mantegna, Esai Morales and Edward James Olmos.

External links

• Re-Animator at IMDb
• Interview With Jeffrey Combs at BloodyGoodHorror.com
• Re-Animator at StillTwitching.com
• DVD Review by Brian Holcomb at CinemaBlend.com
• DVD review at Dread Central