Re-Animator (1985)
The first thing I notice about this is how freaking young Jeffery Combs is. Secondly how much gratuitous nudity there is in this. Third, re-animated humans are SUPER STRONG!
The scene where they reanimated Rufus the cat has stuck with me for years. Pretty much everyone in this is a little forgettable, save for Jeffery Combs as Herbert West and David Gale as Dr. Carl Hill. Yes, Barbara Crampton is in it as Meg doing what she does best, screaming and getting naked.
The version I just watched on the Midnight Pulp did not have the infamous "head giving head" scene, nor did it have the scene where West is injecting some of the reagent into himself like heroin. That might be in the sequel. Which is for later tonight. Though this one ends fairly definitively with West, Hill and Meg all dying in the end. Yeah...I know the title of the movie here.
I have seen this movie, I don't know now, maybe three dozen times. Never fails to amuse and entertain. Though it has been a few years since I last saw it and I am surprised which parts seemed to new to me.
I might need to get one of the newer Blu-Ray releases of it. Though that could just be my tired brain talking.
Taking place after what is being called the Miskatonic Medical School Massacre, Herbert West and Dan Cain are still working on perfecting the re-animation process.
This movie, along with the first, completes the Lovecraft short story, more or less.
This one is also less campy than the first, which is interesting since the camp was one of the main features of the first one. Although West seems a little more unhinged in this movie. Almost out of character really.
There is also far less gratuitous nudity and blood in this one. Of it's there, just not the same as the thirst movie. I am getting the feeling the director and writers were trying to make a more serious horror movie. The scenes where the "Bride" is reanimated are very reminiscent of the Bride of Frankenstein with Else Lancaster. The lightning and the rain in the scene helps that feeling.
David Gale is back as Dr. Carl Hill, a fantastic bad guy to have really. This also marks one of his last roles before dying due to complications from open-heart surgery. Hill as a bat-winged flying head is really one of the joys of the film.
The ending though is pretty campy and crazy.
Oh, I am going to be dragging in the morning. I knew of this movie but did not recall it until I went looking for Bride of Re-Animator on my streaming services. I found it and figured, let's make a night of it! Plus I need a new watch for this challenge.
This one is different from the other two even if it is supposed to be a direct sequel. We begin with the last night of the last movie. Young Howard Philips (hehe) is camping out in a tent with a friend when they hear someone go into their house. They investigate only to find his older sister, but they are quickly attacked by a zombie that kills his sister Emily. Wandering out of his house he sees the police take Herbert West into custody. West drops one of his re-agents and Howard picks it up.
It's13 years after those events and Herbert West is in prison experimenting on rats. Dr. Howard Philips has joined the prison hospital as the new doctor.
The movie was made in Spain and sadly has a less than polished feel about it. I was not surprised to hear it was direct to SciFi production, though I guess it was in some theatres overseas. The presentation is SD, not HD.
They try for a "Silence of the Lambs" feel to the prison, Arkham State Prison.
Elsa Pataky, aka Liam Hemsworth's wife, appears as Laura Olney a journalist who starts an affair with Dr. Philips.
Philips and West set up a lab space in secret to continue their experiments. Meanwhile, Laura keeps investigating West's background. The use of the original music for the research/investigation scenes is a nice touch.
West has discovered that the reagent is only half the solution, there is also this "Nano-Plasmic Energy" that jump starts all the cells. They try it on a pet rat and it comes back to life and 100% fine...well almost.
Laura goes to interview the prisoner that West revived, but is discovered by the Warden. Who promptly gets his ear ripped off. Laura refuses the advances of the Warden and he kills her too. They bring Laura back to life and use the Warden's NPE to make her normal, but it has some weird side-effects, like making her homicidal. West also brings back the Warden, but he manages to escape and steal the reagent. He starts killing prisoners and guards to bring them back to experience death over and over.
A prison riot breaks out and prisoners and the reanimated are all locked in together.
SWAT teams rush in to stop the rioters. We also learn what happens when a living person injects the pure reagent. Spoiler, it's messy.
This one ends with Herbert West walking out of the prison into the night.
It wasn't great, but it was fun.
October 2021
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