the resurrected

H.P. Lovecraft never had much literary success when he was alive; and his dense mythology of inter-dimensional monstrosities lurking just outside of our fragile reality proved difficult to translate cinematically as well. In fact, the very first movie adaptation, Roger Corman's The Haunted Palace (1963), disguised itself as part of the director's popular Edgar Allan Poe series, when the actual source material was loosely based on Lovecraft's story The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. But the breakout success of Re-Animator (1985) on home video twenty years later proved without a doubt that the author wasn't box-office poison after all...and filmmakers decided to give the tale of Charles Dexter Ward another go under yet another title: The Resurrected.

With a modern day setting - 1991 at the time of filming - the story adds a private investigator to the mix, John March (John Terry), hired by Claire Ward (Jane Sibbett) to snoop out an explanation for her husband's unusual behavior. Charles Dexter Ward (Chris Sarandon) just hasn't been the same after discovering the personal effects of his distant relative, Joseph Curwen (also played by Sarandon in a dual role), moving out of the family home to conduct mysterious scientific experiments with nosy interruptions.

March's investigation only raises more questions: why is Ward speaking in such a formal Olde English manner...who are his strange associates...and what smells so god-awful behind the locked door to the basement? Eventually, Claire has her husband committed to a mental institution to evaluate his psychotic state and strange craving for human flesh. Meanwhile, a search of the house where he'd been working turns up a menagerie of half-finished monsters and an awful family secret that just won't stay dead!

Director Dan O'Bannon, although a genre legend thanks to his screenplay for Alien, was only heading behind the camera for the second time in his career, the first being 1985's entertaining zombie flick The Return of the Living Dead. But where that film played fast and loose with horror conventions, leaning more towards comedy than straight-up scares, The Resurrected goes for a much more serious tone. The script by Brent V. Friedman stays faithful to the spirit of Lovecraft's story, plunging our hero into the depths of demonic alchemy, facing off against fleshy afterbirth aberrations that threaten not just his sanity but also his very soul.

But the inexperience of both creators shows in the final product. O'Bannon (who was supposedly quite ill during the shoot) lays on the film noir angle too thick, introducing Claire in nostalgic Bogey / Bacall fashion, then overlights the proceedings with the bland efficiency of a corporate instructional video. Things improve as the movie develops, including a spooky underground set where Ward has abandoned his less successful experiments. But even here, the budget prevents O'Bannon from truly capturing Lovecraft's prose in all its deformed glory.

The Resurrected's true ace-in-hole is Chris Sarandon. With a series of genre credits to his name (The Sentinel, Fright Night and Child's Play), the actor obviously didn't look down on the material and his performance, which could have easily turned into a campy retread of Vincent Price-style histrionics, anchors the film in a twisted sort of reality. His line readings, often direct quotations from Lovecraft's text, make even the most preposterous supernatural braggadocio sound convincing. Sure, a bit of Prince Humperdink from The Princess Bride sneaks in from time to time, but even that works in an almost inexplicably entertaining way.

As to whether this is the best cinematic adaptation of Lovecraft, the debate rages on. For my money, John Carpenter (ironically, O'Bannon's creative partner on their first film, Dark Star) came the closest with In the Mouth of Madness (1994), but it's only inspired by the author's work, not a true adaptation, if you want to be picky. The Resurrected wins points for sticking close to its source material and generating some real atmosphere along the way.

Scream Factory delivers a solid hi-def transfer (the film went straight-to-video upon release so a theatrical comparison is impossible), a 2K scan of the interpositive, and pulls out all the stops when it comes to extras. Besides an excellent group effort audio commentary with contributions from the filmmaking team (O'Bannon passed away in 2009) there are interviews with Jane Sibbett, Chris Sarandon, Brent V. Friedman and composer Richard Band. Of even more interest to those longtime fans of the films, about 20 minutes of deleted and extended scenes are included. Taken from a workprint, there's not enough here to change the course of the film, but it's interesting to see extra character beats and romantic subplots. Scream Factory's release shows a lot of love for this little film that still lingers in many a fan's memory.