Thursday, October 10, 2013

Re-Animator

Well it's Thursday, I can hear the voices chanting "One more day. One more day. ONE MORE DAY!" God knows that I am ready for the weekend, even though it looks like I have finally succumbed to whatever sickness that has been floating around because I feel like death. So what better way to come back to life than reanimation, which makes tonight's movie:

H.P. Lovecraft's Re-Animator.

This movie is a cult classic, for many reasons, and has some of the most infamous horror scenes ever!

Perhaps I shall warn you all now, there is quite a bit a nudity in this movie, both male and female. And one of the most infamous scenes puts a whole new meaning to 'giving head'.


Anyways back to the facts, Jack. This movie was released in 1985 and was directed by Stuart Gordon and is based on H.P. Lovecraft's story of the same name (although very loosely, the movie is more of a parody of Frankenstein). It stars Jeffery Combs as Herbert West. Combs does a fantastic job of playing West, just the right mixture of Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang Theory, meets Dr. Frankenstein.

 The premise of this movie is much like a modern day Frankenstein, a doctor wants to reanimate the dead and is able to achieve this by creating a special serum. One of the great things about this movie is that the blood and gore begins right away, with an 'eye-popping' experience. The special effects department went through 25 gallons of fake blood during shooting.



Now not all of the special effects are fantastic. The dead cat, for example, is poorly executed (pun not intended). Granted since this was released in the 80's one can be forgiving. However, when West brings Dr. Hill back to life as a decapitated head you will have to stretch your imagination to allow the fact that a decapitated head can gasp for air and talk. Also the serum is a neon green, the kind of green that reminds you of toxic waste from The Simpsons.

Can I just point out that today is October 10th, and in the movie West and Cain begin their experiment in the morgue on October 10th...freaky!

Moving on, this movie is great on so many levels, it mixes comedy and horror so perfectly! However there are some mild annoyances mostly ones that deal with the acting. Such as the character of Megan Halsey is really freaking whinny, to the point of which you really don't feel all that bad about what happens to her later. I mean, you should feel slightly bad, but if you don't you're not that horrible of a person.

This is one of the few movies that I think would be really great to see a remake of. I have heard some rumors dating back to 2009 saying that they were going ahead with it and that it was going to be filmed entirely in Spain. I have not seen anything recently about these developments, but I hope to see/hear something soon!

IMDB rates this 7.2 out of 10 stars and Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 93% with a 78% audience approval. I myself really love this movie and think that it is great on so many levels. So I am giving this a well deserved 5 out of 5 skulls.

If you have not yet seen this movie, please go do so, it is a great addition to your Halloween movie collection!

Sidenote: Blogger finally got the error code issue fixed. Thank God for that!

Until tomorrow,
Sleep tight and don't let the zombies bite!

- JD

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