Saturday, October 6, 2012

October Horror 2012: Re-animator

Re-animator is the 1985 cult classic H.P. Lovecraft adaptation directed by Stuart Gordon, who went on to direct a lot more Lovecraft adaptations based on the success of this.  The movie is loosely based on Herbert West: Re-Animator and stars Jeffrey Combs in the lead role.


The original story was published in 6 parts in Weird Tales magazine, and maintains both of Lovecraft's hallmarks of the use of a framing story and of having the timeframe last several years.  The movie departs from this by using a highly compressed timeframe of days, maybe weeks, and also telling the story with more a traditional 3rd person dramatic narrative.  The story is also the first Lovecraft story to use the location of Miskatonic University.

The movie itself is an amazing exercise in pure 80's horror cheese.  The acting is hilariously over the top and the soundtrack is almost cartoony.  It was a lot of fun to watch, not being particularly scary or even disturbing.  It felt a lot like The Evil Dead movies, but maybe a little more restrained.  Gordon doesn't spray fake blood out of a firehose at people like Sam Raimi enjoys doing, but he definitely showers the set and actors in lots of strangely colored liquids.  The movie is also a lot more perverted than anything from The Evil Dead.  Some of what happens is downright nasty, but the movie sprints by almost gleefully.

The special effects are almost impressive for the time, but do look pretty weird and fake.  I think it's by design, though.  The movie revels in that odd sense of humor that calls attention to how corny everything is, but it's also got a massive sick streak.  Well worth the watch.

Coming up, we close out Lovecraft week with John Carpenter's In The Mouth of Madness.


No comments: