Directed By: Stuart Gordon
Budget: $900,000
Aah Re-animator one of my all time favorite movies, it's in my top fifteen at least. Something that always swaps and changes regularly lol.
This film stars one of favorite actors and my all time favorite scream queen too. The actor being Jeffery Combs and the queen, well she is the most beautiful Barbara Crampton one of the best looking 80's horror girls out there by far.
The film was made on a modest for the time 900,000 dollars and features some spectacular special effects for this budget, both practical and animatronic wise.
We start out with Doctor Herbert West (Combs) working in Switzerland. He is caught bringing his old teacher back to life with horrific consequences. Accussed of the doctors death Herbert flees saying the dosage was to high.
We then move on to Miskatonic medical school where we meet Dan (Abbott) a brilliant medical student and also dating the Deans daughter Megan (Crampton). When West is introduced he immediately debunks one of the senior medical staffs ideas (Dr Hill) about brain death. Alienating him and quickly making him an enemy. Dan seems intrigued by West though.
Later that night while Dan and Megan are canoodling under the pretense of studying West shows up at Dan's door inquiring about the spare room. Megan immediately takes a dislike to the weird little man, Dan excepts his offers though despite this. West sets up a makeshift lab in the basement of Dan's place.
It's not long before Dan's cat ends up dead and West see's it as an excuse to test his newest serum out, he's caught by Dan who he blackmails to help out with both the Dean knowing about their sexual activity and Dan's natural curiosity in preventing death. They are caught by Megan who runs away in horror.
They try to show their work to the Dean who quickly debunks their work as preposterous garbage. They are both to be barred from the school and their scholarships. To try to prove their work Dan and West sneak into the morgue and reanimate a rather large fellow into a frenzied state. Then through a number of mishaps he ends up killing Dean Halsey.
Herbert as bananas as he is see's this as the perfect opportunity to work with the freshest corpse yet and proceeds to inject the Dean with his serum. He too comes back to life and turns psychotic too, Megan chances upon the scene horrified at her father. He shows some feeling when he see's her and recoils almost ashamed at what he's become.
Dr Hill takes care of the Dean for Megan but later experiments on him lobotomizing him. He realizes while doing this that the Dean has indeed been Re-animated. He rushes to West intent on blackmailing him in return for all his research on the serum. West manages to distract Hill with a test of the serum, he then decapitate the doctor with a shovel.
Stupidly to me now West re-animates both Hills head and body, with the body showing no signs of life he begins to question Hill's head. The body then rises knocking West out, he then steals the serum and research and returns to his office.
To most the reagent would have appeared to give Hill the power of mind control but i do believe there was a cut scene where Hill is shown to have some psychic ability or practicing it as he can control Dean Halsey with his mind. Hill throughout the film is shown to have a lurid sexual interest in Megan so he send the Dean out to kidnap her. At the sight of her lobotomized father she faints.
Hill straps her to an operating table strips her and abuses her unconscious body. Dan wakes West and they both head towards the school morgue, West distracts Hill while Dan frees Megan from the straps. It's then revealed Hill has created an army of several lobotomized re-animates as they attack at his will. Megan manages to get through to her father who protects her from them while West gives Hill's body a massive overdose of the serum. This causes a massive internal mutation making Hill's guts spew forth and literally try to kill everyone.
I think i've already spoiled far to much of this fantastic 80's film that everyone should watch at some point in their lives. If you love comedy horror like return of the living dead, child's play or even nightmare on elm street this film should be right up your street. It's followed by two more sequels both of which slowly go down hill as sequels do but this one is a proper gem.
THN gives Re-animator full 5 out of 5 stars with a heavy recommendation to watch
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