reanimator 2017

The creators of Re-Animator are spot-on when they attribute their film’s success to the video boom of the ‘80s – that magical era when underage kids across the country could walk into a “mom n’ pop” rental store and ogle shelf after shelf of temptingly lurid cover art, all of it promising the sort of illicit sex and gore only the new unrated video market could offer. Stuart Gordon’s debut feature, a wildly loose adaptation of a series of H.P. Lovecraft stories that combined dead-pan humor with outlandish amounts of blood, is anchored by a star-making performance from Jeffery Combs (that unjustly never turned him into a star), making Re-Animator one of the few films that lived up to the advertising on its box, pushing the limits of bad taste to the point of no return. After an over-the-top intro that expertly sets the tone for the rest of the film, Herbert West (Combs) enrolls at Miskatonic University where he rents a room from fellow med student, Dan (Bruce Abbott), who just happens to be dating the Dean’s daughter, Megan (the luscious Barbara Crampton). West’s experiments begin with his roommate’s cat, then steamroll out of control, involving a morgue full of cadavers and even the Dean himself. While West and Dan are scrambling to stay out of jail and keep their undead creations hidden long enough to continue their experiments, a rival scientist, Dr. Hill (David Gale), plots to steal their formula and sports an unhealthy lust for Megan’s body. The duel between West and Dr. Hill, full of academic insults and scientific one-upmanship, is the narrative drive behind the film, with both actors putting on the performance of their careers. And the script keeps pace by piling on one outrageous twist after another. Anyone who dies in the film is fair game to be re-animated...even if they didn’t die in one piece! It’s this relentless unpredictability that keeps Re-Animator fresh after 30 years. Even the gore – severed heads, bursting chests and pulsating eyeballs – hold up as some of the most gruesome practical effects put to film. Director Stuart Gordon’s “shot-for-the-stage” approach, which seems far too visually reserved for the horror genre, somehow works in the film’s favor. At times the movie feels like a high-school take on Titus Andronicus, gleefully tossing raw meat in the audience’s laps from the comfort of its obviously self-contained set. And it’s Gordon’s emphasis on snappy dialogue and performance that has elevated Re-Animator above the standard Fangoria fan circles into semi-legitimate status...any film with a disembodied head giving head can only rise so far. Arrow Video's extras are a mix of old and new wrapped inside one heck of an impressive looking collectible package including postcards, a 1991 comic-book adaptation and scads of cool illustrations. The meat and potatoes of the new set begin with a lip-smacking 4K transfer of the unrated cut (plus a "integral" version with extra scenes) that easily tops everything other edition out there. Disc One contains all the extras collected from previous sets like the Re-Animator Resurrectus making of, interviews with cast and crew, three separate individual audio commentaries, deleted scenes and TV spots. New special features on Disc Two include an hour-long documentary - A Guide to Lovecraftian Cinema - and Spinechillers, which features Jeffrey Combs reading Lovecraft's original Re-Animator stories.