Thoughts on Re-Animator

 

via IMDB

"Doctor -- Dr. Halsey, you once did me a favor by letting me into your medical school. Doctor, welcome back to life."

Soap opera fans still talk about The Young and the Restless incorporating Jeanne Cooper's real life 1984 facelift into the show. Historian Gerald J. Waggett noted that it happened just before the Discovery Channel popularized surgery documentaries. I had a similar "Oh yeah, this is something most people had or have never seen before" thought when watching Re-Animator. Dr. Carl Hill (David Gale) exposing a cadaver's brain to students including Dan Cain (Bruce Abbot) and Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) had to have gotten at least one moviegoer to put down -- or toss up -- the popcorn.

"And then grasping firmly with both hands, you pull the skin forward over the head, very much like peeling a large orange." 

Re-Animator, inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, was directed and co-written by Stuart Gordon with Dennis Paoli and William Norris. Makeup effects were created by John Naulin, with mechanical effects by Tony Doublin. The movie's brain trust and its central quintet, including Robert Sampson and future Y&R star Barbara Crampton as the hapless Halseys, go for broke with memorable results. Kindly show me another film where a man doesn't let the fact that his head's detached from his body keep him from attempting cunnilingus. I hadn't seen Re-Animator before, but had a vague idea about Gale and Crampton's big scene. I imagined something slightly more shocking, Megan standing up with Hill's head still firmly attached to her person. Either way, I agree with Tasha Robinson's assessment that the movie's "pulp fiction, and it's cheerfully aware of its origins, and its ridiculousness."

West, responsible for his mentor's gory second death, relocates to Miskatonic University. Antagonizing Dr. Hill, giving Megan the creeps and using Rufus the cat as a test subject, West isn't going to win any points as a student or roommate. Dan, established as being overzealous in attempting to revive doomed patients, has an interesting moral event horizon. Once Dean Halsey decides to expel both he and West, revoke Dan's student loan and forbid him from ever seeing Megan again, Dan decides to participate in West's experimentations. There are horrifying consequences, but you can understand why Dan does what he does. Abbot and especially Crampton were great at subtly reminding the audience of the human factor against all the mayhem. Megan is a nice young girl -- the "Sophomore Sweetheart," for Christ's sake -- whose daddy, his best friend and her boyfriend go from normal to nightmarish.

"I want you to think of me as someone you can come to with your problems. Or if you're ever lonely. I know you're all by yourself now."

*Halsey interrupts the attempted hypnosis by slamming against the one-way mirror, upsetting Megan*

The thrills and performances are enough to recommend Re-Animator, but I also want to call attention to the strong storytelling. Gordon and company don't waste time. Did West flee Switzerland? Who cares. What makes the reagent "work" beyond various reanimating solutions? Doesn't matter. There's also a genuine sense of Fun With Being Cheap, which comes across particularly well in the scene where Dan discovers what West's doing with the previously dead Rufus. Abbot and Combs are messing around for a minute-and-a-half with occasionally a puppet and often nothing at all while the lighting's deliberately limited (since they're in a basement with a swinging overhead light) and the sound effects are overdone.

It's funny. I don't especially like horror movies, since they tend to stick with me. I used to think that day one is when I get scared, day two is when I can't stop thinking about it and day three is when it's part of my memory, ready for an eventual resurface. On the other hand, I also enjoy horror movies because I'm captivated by the characters, the emotion and the excitement. Throw in humor, as Re-Animator does, and you've got something like my beloved soap operas. It's hard to keep off your mind. 

"I must say, Dr. Hill, I'm very disappointed in you. You steal the secret of life and death and here you are, trysting with a bubble-headed coed. You're not even a second-rate scientist."

Recommended.

Thoughts:

-- "Don't expect it to tango. It has a broken back."

-- Box Office: Grossing more than $2 million on a $900,000 budget, this opened outside the top 10 and came in at No. 140 for 1985.

-- Critic's Corner: "Has as much originality as it has gore, and that's really saying something," Janet Maslin wrote. "Here, you have to admit, is a movie with guts," Paul Attanasio wrote. Pauline Kael: "Close to being a silly ghoulie classic -- the bloodier it gets, the funnier it is." Mike D'Angelo, A.V. Club: "Unlike most horror-comedies, this one simply amps up the horror and lets the comedy take care of itself." Keith Phipps: "... found the border of good taste and headed straight for the lands beyond." Andrew Lapin, The Dissolve: "Tonally, it's about as loose as an adaptation can get while still remaining recognizable to fans of its influence, a revived corpse that turns on its master."

-- Awards Watch: Nominated for Saturn Awards for Best Horror Film and Best Makeup, this lost to Fright Night and Day of the Dead, respectively.

-- Hey, It's the mid-'80s!: Dan has a Stop Making Sense poster. Talking Heads, get it?

-- Speaking of music, Attanasio proved my ears weren't deceiving me. Richard Band's score does sound too close for comfort to Bernard Herrmann's theme to Psycho.

-- Gordon, Combs and Crampton were all interviewed at the A.V. Club, by Phipps, Rabin and Rife, respectively. Gordon talked about the dream of doing a series of Lovecraft adaptations, a la Roger Corman's Poe movies. "Re-Animator was really perfect movie material, because it was so action-packed and had all these incredible and outrageous gore effects and things." Combs talked about typecasting. "I just told myself I'd just turn everything, even if it's all study in a particular genre, I'd try to expand people's perception of me by what I did within the framework I've got going." Crampton talked about From Beyond, which I should now see, not least of which because she and Combs switched roles and she got to be the sexual aggressor. "By that time, we (including Gordon) had a shorthand with one another. I think that the three of us worked really well together. We liked one another. We liked being around one another."

-- Crampton's performance opposite Combs makes me long for the Big Bang Theory guest appearance that never was. You can't tell me she couldn't have held her own opposite Jim Parsons. While I was too young to catch her first run on Y&R, I'm not surprised she became a fan favorite.

Courtesy YouTube

-- "I love you." *injects Megan with reagent as movie fades to black* *she gives a horrifying scream*

*roll credits* Between this, Pet Sematary and Deadly Friend, dudes need to learn that when she's dead, she's dead. At least if they want to keep living.

-- Next: Dreamchild. On deck: Sweet Dreams, Krush Groove. Coming soon: A Nightmare on Elm Street II: Freddy's Revenge and To Live and Die in L.A.