Film: Re-Animator

Director: Stuart Gordon
Genre: Horror
Source: USA (1985)
Rating: R
Location/Format: Netflix Instant Watch
Grade: B+

This is the cheesy, fun, gory, crazy horror movie I have been looking for all through October. Stuart Gordon's HP Lovecraft update has the gory practical effects, over the top insanity, and serious hilarity (is that a thing?) of the best B-movies. I'd never really call it scary, but it's really not trying to be. Instead, it's trying to be shocking and audacious, and in that regard it succeeds. Demon cat, insane-o-Dad, the headless scientist, and the goofiest/weirdest sex scene around? Yep, it's all here.

The film has it's fair share of bad acting, particularly in the barely present talents of Bruce Abbott and a slew of naked zombie corpse extras, and if that's all there was to the story it would simply be another cheap 80s horror melodrama. But then there's Jeffrey Combs.

Ah, Jeffrey Combs. He approaches his role as Herbert West with a seriousness and intensity that makes me think someone told him this was a forgotten Shakespearean masterpiece. His fervor and seriousness stand in contrast to the B-movie shenanigans around him, and that is what makes it work. Everyone else is distracted by green potions and walking corpses and so much blood, but West will not be deterred from his scientific advancements, no matter the cost. He is gleeful in his Frankensteinian devotion to his craft, and if he seems like he comes from another movie, all the more reason he looks down on the puny small thinkers that surround him.

In the final tally, the movie was just too much fun not to laugh at--and with. A fun piece of Halloween horror schlock that I'm glad I finally got around to seeing. The only thing that would make it better would be to watch it late at night with a bunch of rowdy friends. 

Maybe next Halloween.