Re-Animator DVD Review

The Evil Undead

Released : May 24th 1985

Certificate : 18

Director : Stuart Gordon

Cast : Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Bruce Abbott

Plot : A medical student (Abbott) takes in a new room mate who has just moved to study medicine alongside him, and continue his secret work on his death defying serum.

In the 80’s, there were milestones of horror films made, and the genre in itself evolving. With the new practical effects available, there was the ability to make some hilariously violent films, on a shoe string budget. Re-animator, was alike The Evil Dead movies, one of these stand outs of the 80’s. For all manner of reasons you have some of most iconic horror films ever made, such as The Shinning, Poltergeist, The Thing and An American Werewolf in London. Stuart Gordon, made his one hit wonder film here based loosely on the writings of infamous early literature writer H.P Lovecraft.

As with some of the horror films that were made during this time, they became famous for their practical effects and gore, rather than for their craft of cinema. The first Evil Dead film introduced this style to the decade, and Re-animator raised the bar. So as with many gory horrors of the time, the makeup department surpass the importance of the writing and acting of the film by many a mile. With acting that would rival Halloween in its infamous quality, Re-animator is able to bring laughs even without the gore. As the acting alone, with the leading performance of Jeffrey Combs, bring the film well into the realm of so bad its brilliant. And this quality is head across the board, with all but one stars being aptly awful. Whether the acting choices of the film are intentional or not doesn’t really matter, as the spectacle is still as entertaining whichever is true.

And the serial nature of the plot is to match. The film has gaping plot holes that you could walk through, cliches that match the dialogue, and due to the budget the film has about 6 settings for the entire film. The film is 1 hour and 44 mins long and is a combination of the over the top gory violence, poor acting and outright jaw dropping terrible features all around. The vibe of the film is perfectly captured by its original tag line, “He has a good head on his shoulders… and another one on the table”. As what this film is infamous for is that of its villain that carries his own head around for the majority of the film. As for flaws for the film that actually matter, they revolve around the highlight of the film, which is the special effects. For some audience it would be acceptable to gain very little pleasure from this film. For each year the practical effects become more and more dated, and there are plenty of other terrible horror films with a better level of gore. Hence the original shock factor that made the film famous disappears, so does maybe its laughability. For some might not find the dated nature of the practical effects as hilariously over the top as others.

Re-animator is a little know gem, as it deserves nothing else than that (it was lucky to snag a mention in the ‘stoned’ dialogue of American Beauty). But while of the majority of today’s horror film turn out quality just a low, unintentionally, with the promise of genuine scares, this film is a refreshing awful look at the early days of the genre. While it isn’t quiet on the level of Evil Dead 2, it did come before that film, and its style and structure may have well influenced ED2. A film that you watch for the lack of quality across the board and for the special effects, a brilliant comedy horror cult film.

Verdict : A key film in the genre of; it’s so bad and over the top, that its quiet brilliant.

Verdict : 4/5

Quote : “I was busy pushing bodies around as you well know and what would a note say, Dan? “Cat dead, details later”?”