Re-Animator (1985)

... aka: A Hora dos Mortos-Vivos (The Hour of the Living Dead)

... aka: H.P. Lovecraft's Re-Animator

... aka: Resurrección satánica (Satanic Resurrection)

... aka: Zombio

Directed by:

Stuart Gordon

Re-Animator basically came about because Gordon (then mostly associated with stage productions and founding the Organic Theater Company) wanted to make something Frankenstein-like to counter the overabundance of vampire movies being produced. That led him to H.P. Lovecraft's previously-unfilmed 1922 six-part serial Herbert West, Reanimator, which he first considered turning into a stage adaptation and then a TV pilot before being convinced by eventual producer Brian Yuzna to go the feature film route instead. It was eventually filmed in Hollywood over the course of 18 days in the winter of 1984 for around 900,000 dollars.

What probably came as a surprise to most involved, especially in a decade where many were coming down especially hard on gory horror films, was that the film would become a huge success with critics despite the fact it was bloodier and gorier than most of its competition. It hit the Cannes Film Festival to rave reviews and won a special award there, before heading to other film festivals and replicating its success. Critics for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Village Voice (who selected it as one of the Top 10 films of the year) and other major magazines doled out praise and even many of the stuffier critics like Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert jumped on board. The positive word of mouth was enough to turn this into a box office success and it doubled its budget back in U.S. theaters alone. The film likely would have been an even bigger hit had the MPAA not slapped it with an X rating, which forced the distributors to release it unrated instead.

When it was time for a VHS release, original U.S. distributor Vestron opted to release two versions: An R-rated cut and an uncut / unrated one. I'm sure you can guess which version was more popular! Oddly, the R-rated version runs 93 minutes while the uncut version runs just 86. That's because the cut version contains more dialogue scenes, which were removed from the gorier version to improve its pacing. A 105-minute "integral cut" was later assembled utilizing all of the footage. All three versions are now available on various DVD and Blu-ray releases.

Re-Animator's success ended up leading to a lot of other things, starting with opening the door for many more Lovecraft film adaptations (or Lovecraft "inspired" films) plus a resurgence in the author's popularity. Gordon and Yuzna both became top genre directors over the next few years while both male star Jeffrey Combs and female star Barbara Crampton became genre mainstays. If anything, the film's cult reputation has only grown stronger in recent years. It was name dropped in 2000's Best Picture Academy Award winner American Beauty and is now a frequent fixture of Top Horror Movies of All Time lists. A critic's poll done for Time Out placed it at #93 while Rotten Tomatoes methodology has it listed as the 58th best reviewed horror film of all time. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

We're first introduced to two very different third year students at Miskatonic Medical School in Arkham, Massachusetts. The first is Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott), who's bright, clean-cut, well-respected, studious, compassionate and conscientious. He's the type of guy who actually feels something if he loses a patient, just as he later feels something when he loses his cat. Dan's the exact type of person who should be pursuing a career as a doctor and it's not because he's still young, idealistic and hasn't had the time to get completely burnt-out and desensitized yet. It's because he seems like a genuinely good guy. On the flip side there's Herbert West (Combs), who's much more into the research side of the medical profession. West is intense, brilliant, short-fused, socially off-putting, more than a little bit arrogant and something of a sociopath. Once he puts his mind to something, there's just no stopping him. Ethics and morals be damned.

Herbert has just transferred to the school from Switzerland, where he was doing some kind of "independent research" with the renowned Dr. Hans Gruber (Al Berry)... only Gruber ended up dead at the end of it. He immediately manages to get on brain researcher / teacher Dr. Carl Hill's (David Gale) bad side by calling his work outmoded and accusing him of plagiarizing his late mentor's work. Dan puts an ad on a school bulletin board looking for a roommate to share expenses with. Guess who shows up at his door? Despite Dan's fiancée Megan (Crampton) picking up bad vibes from the sketchy-acting Herbert (he seems more interested in the home having a large basement than anything else), Dan takes his money and reluctantly allows him to move in.

Megan's initial feelings prove to be correct. Herbert keeps himself locked up in his room at all times and doesn't interact with anyone outside of school. She finds Dan's cat, Rufus, dead in Herbert's refrigerator alongside a bottle of dayglo green liquid of unknown origin. Herbert claims that the cat got its head stuck in a jar and suffocated. Megan doesn't believe him. Still, Herbert knows she and Dan have been sleeping with each other and if Alan Halsey (Robert Sampson), Megan's puritanical father and the school Dean, finds out about it he very well could expel Dan from the program. Late one night, Dan is awaken by strange noises coming from the basement and discovers his new roomie has somehow managed to bring Rufus back to life. The cat's now out of the bag. Literally.

Herbert explains to Dan what he's been experimenting on all this time: reanimation; bringing the dead back to life. He's already been successful in resurrecting various animals using his patented reagent (the green stuff), which is injected directly into the brain. The problem is that the revived animals have all been vicious and violent and had to be put down soon after. Herbert is convinced it's because he hasn't had a fresh enough test subject... yet. Understandably concerned, Dan goes to Dean Halsey and reveals what he's discovered only to have the Dean immediately expel Herbert from the program and threaten him with expulsion and losing his financial aid. Nevertheless, Dan sneaks Herbert into the morgue so they can try out the reagent on a fresh corpse. It's resurrected as a zombie, goes on a violent rampage, kills the Dean and then things spiral further out of control from there.

Though perhaps lacking in more substantive qualities that would have really put it over the top, Gordon does such a commendable job with the pacing and balancing the bloodshed with black humor it hardly even matters. It's pretty easy to see why this became so popular in the 80s and why it's continued to endure as a top cult title over the years. Gorehounds get exploding eyeballs, brains extracted from heads, a bone saw thrust through a chest, a shovel decapitation, eyes gouged out, fingers bitten off, arms axed off, attacking intestines (later copied by Peter Jackson for Braindead), zombies and much more. Most famously of all, Gale's character spends about half of his screen time carrying his own still-living severed head around in a dish and then has a memorably tasteless scene with Crampton as she's tied down to a slab and sexually violated. The make-up and special effects from Anthony Doublin, John Nualin, Everett Burrell and John Carl Buechler are great.

Combs and Gale have received the lion's share of praise as far as the cast is concerned and, while it's true they're both memorable in the showier roles, Abbott and Crampton are just as deserving of praise for their contributions if you ask me. Both get to show a lot of emotional range here and, without them keeping things grounded and giving the more unhinged, outrageous characters something believable to play off of, the film wouldn't be nearly as successful. Sampson does a great job, too. The cast also includes Gerry Black as a security guard who really enjoys his breaks, Carolyn Purdy-Gordon (the director's wife, who appeared in most of his other films) as a doctor, Peter Kent (formerly Arnold Schwarzenegger's stunt double) as a naked zombie and Ian Patrick Williams, who'd go on to star in the director's Dolls (1987), along with Gordon's wife.

Richard Band's score is often criticized for copying Bernard Herrmann's famous Psycho score, which is understandable once you hear it. What I don't see mentioned is that there's a passage near the end that's just as much a rip-off of Jerry Goldsmith's score for The Omen! Either way, it's noticeable but not a deal breaker. Mac Ahlberg did a nice job shooting it and the art direction is from Robert A. Burns (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre).

Two official sequels followed: 1990's Bride of Re-Animator, which was directed by Yuzna and had Combs, Abbott and Gale all reprising their roles, and Beyond Re-Animator (2003), which was filmed in Spain, also directed by Yuzna and starred Combs. In 2011, there was also the stage production Re-Animator: The Musical.

★★★1/2