RE-ANIMATOR
The horror film Re-Animator has become a big cult classic amongst us scary movie fanatics. It’s celebrating its 40th anniversary and the fine folks at Ignite Films and Eagle Rock Pictures have released a brand new 4K restoration with a jaw-dropping number of special features, both new and legacy special features.
Re-Animator is based on H.P. Lovecraft’s twisted “Frankenstein”-like story. It stars Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West, a medical student who wants to “defeat death” by way of resurrecting people back to life. He secretly brings back to life a dead cat and now has his eyes set on humans thanks to his new glowing green serum. He convinces fellow med student and classmate, Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott), to steal bodies from the morgue for their “re-animation” experiments. It also stars Barbara Crampton and Robert Sampson.
The horror genre has come a long way in forty years, so you have to approach this film with a reminder of the scrappy filmmaking techniques of the ’80s that frequently came with low budgets. This story is sci-fi fantasy camp thanks to director Stuart Gordon who understood the assignment. It’s easy to see why audiences love it and why it has stood the test of time. The blood effects and prosthetics are really impressive for the era marking a tangible realness when current films would have relied on CGI to pull it off. It’s sick and twisted and a product of its time. It would be a notably different in its execution and story if it were made today. This film has “late night gore fest” written all over it. Perfect for when you’re dead asleep on the couch, want to turn your mind off, and just go along for the ride.
The one thing that truly bugs me is the score. Richard Band’s score is specifically meant to be a rip-off of Bernard Hermann’s iconic score to Psycho, but it’s the wrong choice. I get that it plays into the camp and B-level nature of the movie, but the Band’s music is TOO similar to Hermann’s. Maybe if he had played with the melody a bit or changed it up to merely hint at Psycho, it might be different. For me, it just feels like a copycat that is too distracting from the movie.
Re-Animator defied expectations earning strong praise from film critics Roger Ebert and Pauline Kael along with screening at the Cannes Film Festival.
SPECIAL FEATURES (from the press release)
New Bonus Features 2 hours and 47 minutes of newly produced bonus features
- Re-Animator at 40: A Conversation with Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, and Brian Yuzna
- Piece By Piece: Cutting Re-Animator – A New Interview with Editor Lee Percy
- The Horror of It All: The Legacy and Impact of Re-Animator
- I Give Life: A Look Back at Re-Animator: The Musical
- Suzie Sorority and the Good College Boy: An Interview with Carolyn Purdy-Gordon
- Re-Animating a Horror Classic: The 4K Restoration of Re-Animator
- The Organic Theater Company of Chicago: A 1977 documentary featuring Stuart Gordon
- New 40th anniversary 4K UHD trailer
Legacy Bonus Features
- Integral Version (105 mins)
- Isolated Score
- Audio commentary with director Stuart Gordon and actors Graham Skipper and Jesse Merlin of Re-Animator: The Musical
- Audio commentary with Stuart Gordon
- Audio commentary with producer Brian Yuzna, actors Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Bruce Abbott, and Robert Sampson
- Re-Animator: Resurrectus – Feature-length documentary on the making of the film featuring extensive interviews with cast and crew.
- Interviews with director Stuart Gordon and producer Brian Yuzna, writer Dennis Paoli, composer Richard Band and former Fangoria editor Tony Timpone
- Music discussion with composer Richard Band
- The Catastrophe of Success: Stuart Gordon and The Organic Theater – Director Stuart Gordon discusses his early theater roots and his continued commitment to the stage.
- Theater of Blood – Re-Animator: The Musical lyricist Mark Nutter on adapting the cult classic for musical theater
- Extended scenes
- Deleted scene
- Trailer & TV spots
- Stills gallery
- Barbara Crampton In Conversation: The Re-Animator star sits down with journalist Alan Jones for this career-spanning 2015 interview.
- A Guide to Lovecraft Cinema: Chris Lackey, host of the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast, provides a comprehensive look at the many cinematic incarnations of Lovecraft’s work.
- Doug Bradley’s Spinechillers: Herbert West, Re-Animator actor Jeffrey Combs reads H.P. Lovecraft’s original classic story.
Here’s the video I made for TikTok
