Plot: What’s it about?
A doctor and some security guards moving down a hallway at a hospital in Zurich. Screams are emanating from a room. As they burst into the room an older man in a lab coat lets out a scream as his eyes begin to bulge before they burst. The man falls down dead. The young doctor in the room with him, Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs,) proclaims that he has not killed him but in actuality “given him life.” The film then cuts to America, where medical student Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott) is dating Megan Halsey (Barbara Crampton,) the Dean’s daughter. Dan is working his way through medical school and needs grants to make his way through. His medical professor and best shot at financial aid is Dr. Carl Hill (David Gale,) who also has a crush on his girlfriend. Needing to help subsidize his expenses, Dan accepts a new roommate – Herbert West. Soon Herbert resumes his experiments in their basement with reanimation of living beings in Dan’s basement, causing chaos.
Re-Animator is well loved for numerous reasons. For one, the film was made on roughly a one million dollar budget independently and did not need to answer to anybody for its content. Therefore, it pushed boundaries in gore and sexual content that could not have possibly received an R-rating at the time. Bravely, producer Brian Yuzna decided to release the film Unrated and did not alter the film’s content. This caused many horror fans to love it for its audaciousness. Another reason why it is so beloved is its dry commitment to the ridiculous material. Jeffrey Combs is absolutely fantastic as Herbert West. He delivers absolutely ludicrous lines without the slightest wink to the audience. This has a lot to do with the theatrical training of Director Stuart Gordon who held numerous rehearsals with the crew as if the film was a stage play. The rehearsals paid off large dividends.
The supporting cast is very capable. David Gale is the most notable supporting actor as the villainous Dr. Carl Hill. Barbara Crampton and Bruce Abbott do solid work with the more straight laced roles in the film. The score by Richard Band that rips off Bernard Hermann’s work on Psycho adds to the enjoyment and silliness of the film.
Re-Animator set the bar for many more ridiculous horror-comedies to come. Its tone that alternates between incredibly gross sights and gallows-humor is a tough balancing act to follow. This is essentially one of those movies where numerous elements work together to form something better than they could have possibly envisioned when they made it. It holds up well over thirty years after production took place. For fans of this type of material, this is basically necessary viewing.
Video: How’s it look?
I suppose the best way to address how this looks is by watching the newly-produced feature on the 4K restoration of this film. But coming from someone who’s only seen this movie a few times, I’ll say that this is the best it’s ever looked. I think that goes without saying. I think we all realize that this will never have the polished look of a newly-produced film (nor would we want it to), but we do get to see the painstaking detail that went into making this look how we see it now. Increased contrast, deeper blacks, higher detail resolution and more make this the definitive version that we’ve all been waiting for (and deserve)!
Audio: How’s it sound?
We get a DTS-HD 5.1 mix of the film as well as a mono mix. I personally liked the way that the 5.1 mix sounded the best, but both mixes are decent. Given that the film had directionality but was not originally mixed in 5.1, there is not as much directionality as more recently made films. The excellent score by Richard Band gets a nice boost in the 5.1 mix, and helped to make an already enjoyable film even better. For the Integral Version only a 5.1 mix is supplied, but I can not imagine any fan caring whatsoever given their due diligence on the first disk. Excellent stuff.
Supplements: What are the extras?
Nearly three hours of new bonus content has been produced for this release along with the legacy features found on the earlier Blu-ray.
New Bonus Content
- Re-Animator at 40: A Conversation with Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, and Brian Yuzna – As the title suggests, this new feature gives us the lowdown, being a part of the film and its long lasting legacy four decades later.
- Piece By Piece: Cutting Re-Animator – A New Interview with Editor Lee Percy – I can’t imagine nothing too important would happen with editing a few decades after this film’s release, but it is interesting to hear Percy’s thoughts now.
- The Horror of It All: The Legacy and Impact of Re-Animator – This is probably the segment I enjoyed the most as it does give us a look at the appeal and endurance that this “little film that could” still has.
- I Give Life: A Look Back at Re-Animator: The Musical – I recently saw a woman with a sweatshirt that said “Jagged Little Pill: The Musical.” I guess that’s when you know you’ve really made it, you’ve got a musical. Well…we’ve got one (sort of). Enjoy!
- Suzie Sorority and the Good College Boy: An Interview with Carolyn Purdy-Gordon – This new interview with Carolyn Purdy-Gordon (who still looks pretty darn good to me) is enjoyable and she too shares her long-lasting love for the movie.
- Re-Animating a Horror Classic: The 4K Restoration of Re-Animator – I love these. If you really want to see the effort that went into producing this new 4K disc, this one is a no-brainer (pardon the pun).
- The Organic Theater Company of Chicago: A 1977 documentary featuring Stuart Gordon – Pretty much just that. We get a look back at the roots of Gordon as well as what propelled him to come up with this film.
- 40th anniversary 4K Trailer
Legacy Content
- Unrated Cut of the Film (86 minutes)
- Re-Animator: Resurrectus – An excellent full length documentary on the film produced by Anchor Bay with great interviews with Stuart Gordon, Barbara Crampton, Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott, Brian Yuzna, and more. This was excellent.
- Interviews:
- Stuart Gordon and Brian Yuzna – a great sit down between the two men most responsible for the film coming to fruition.
- Writer Dennis Paoli- a quick an enjoyable chat with the co-writer of the film.
- Composer Richard Band – another in depth discussion.
- Fangoria editor Tony Timpone – short interview that highlighted the magazine’s response to the film.
- Music discussion with Richard Band – a continuation of the prior interview where he discussses exactly what he did with the score.
- Barbara Krampton interview – Barbara sat down for an extended interview at 2015 Fright Fest.
- The Catastrophe of Success – Stuart Gordon discusses at length his theatrical roots that included producing plays from noted playwrights like David Mamet at the Organic Theatre in Chicago.
- Theatre of Blood – the lyricist for Re-Animator: The Musical, Mark Nutter, discusses adapting the film to a musical.
- Extended Scenes
- Deleted Scene
- Multi Angle Storyboards – for three scenes you can alternate between film and storyboard.
- Trailer
- TV Spots
- Still Gallery
- Audio Commentaries:
- Stuart Gordon – an interesting (but occasionally dry) commentary with the director.
- Cast and Crew – Brian Yuzna, Jeffrey Combs, Robert Sampson, and Barbara Krampton discuss the film. Fun stuff.
- Stuart Gordon, Graham Skipper, and Jesse Merlin – The director sits down with the actors from the musical to discuss the film. I was not as interested in this one, just because I have not seen the musical.
- Integral Version (105 minutes)
- A Guide to Lovecraftian Cinema – Nucleus Films produced this long and well put together overview of films that owe to Lovecraft. One of my favorite features in the set. Really fun and interesting.
- Doug Bradley’s Spinechillers: Herbert West – Re-Animator – Audio recordings of all six of the original Herbert West stories by Lovecraft.
The Bottom Line
Some films stand the test of time while others simply don’t. Re-Animator is a film that doesn’t (and never did) take itself too seriously. But four decades later, it’s still going strong and it knows its audience. This new 4K offering gives us tons of features as well as a slew of newly-produced supplements along with a new 4K image. What more could us fans as for?
