RE-ANIMATOR (1985)

Directed by Stuart Gordon, Starring: Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott, Barbara Crampton. Horror, US, 1985, 86mins, Cert 18.

(Very) loosely based on H.P. Lovecraft’s ‘Herbert West – Reanimator’, director Stuart Gordon’s 1985 splatter fest burst upon the genre in much the same way as the bone saw emerged from the chest of one of Jeffrey Combs’ reanimated corpses. It’s rejuvenating injection of gore and guffaws, courtesy of Herbert West’s luminous syringes, delivered a Frankenstein-like tale with a deliciously lurid Hammer-like take, topped off with gross-out make-up effects and a naked Barbara Crampton. 

  

I first recall watching the film on an Entertainment in Video VHS rental tape back in those halcyon days in the 80’s when every trip to the local video store represented a voyage of disreputable discovery and wobbly tracking. Even though it was shorn of nearly 2 minutes including most of Barbara Crampton being fondled on the slab by the severed head (and mind-controlled body) of David Gale’s Dr Hill, it still stood out from the crowd of relatively tame and tired slashers on offer at the time. 

Therefore it’s a delight to be able to view the film now in all its guts and gory glory in a superb restoration which for the first time also includes an ‘integral’ version which restores all the extra talky bits and cut scene sub-plots trimmed at the time of release to tighten pacing. I still prefer the ‘Unrated’ 86 minute cut – but it’s a treat for any completist to be able to view the film with all the scenes intact, in context.

What does remain constant in whichever version you view is the extraordinarily mesmeric performance of Jeffrey Combs as the madly obsessed ‘re-animator’. No one can break a pencil with such concentrated intensity as Combs, and his performance as Herbert West acts as a lightning rod conducting the increasingly manic and maniacal mayhem in the Miskatonic University morgue. Both Bruce Abbot and Barbara Crampton provide sterling support work – with Crampton really putting herself out on a limb during the notorious slab scene – and David Gale’s performance as a severed head in a tray of blood plasma is memorably grotesque. 

Technically, Stuart Gordon’s debut feature direction is surprisingly assured, and he is ably assisted by Mac Ahlberg’s efficient camerawork and Richard Band’s infectiously funky re-scoring of Bernard Hermann’s strings. And of course the practical make-up effects are to die for in their unrestrained gooey bloodied ickiness. 

Gordon went on to memorably plunder H. P. Lovecraft once again the following year with FROM BEYOND, bringing along with him both Combs and Crampton for the ride, but his subsequent body of work ever since has never managed to eclipse the richly deserved affectionate notoriety of his first feature. 

****(OUT OF 5*)

Paul Worts

This review was first published by FrightFest.