There is no other reason to watch it than to revel in its excesses, and the more excessive it gets, the more fun it is.
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It was almost a year earlier that I reviewed Elite Entertainment's first release of the satiric 1985 cult-horror classic, "Re-Animator." Now, they're back with yet another edition, this time a two-disc set with more bonuses than ever, THX mastered, and in Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. You think they're going make this an annual event? Next year maybe it'll be three discs and bookends. Anyway, if you've always heard about this film and thought you might want to see it, or if you love the film but have been wary of the quality of the old disc's somewhat raggedy transfer and ordinary mono sound, now's probably the time to think again. The "Re-Animator" Millennium Edition offers everything you might have ever wanted in the film and more.
Let me refresh your memory about the movie itself. Directed by Stuart Gordon and produced by Brian Yuzna, "Re-Animator" is based upon a series of stories by H.P. Lovecraft. It begins in a laboratory in Switzerland where we see a scientist's head explode. That surely sets the tone right there. Three younger stars and two older ones get almost equal screen time in the film. The first character is a certifiably committable medical student, Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs), who thinks he's unlocked the secret of reviving the dead. In this respect we're looking at an archetypal Frankenstein picture ("It's alive!"), but old Frank was never like this. West was in Switzerland when the aforementioned mishap occurred, and now he's come to America to further his studies at Miskatonic University (one of Lovecraft's favorite fictional haunts). He rents a room from another young med student only a bit more together than he is, Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott), whom he soon brings into his experiments. The third major participant is Megan Halsey (Barbara Crampton), Dan's fiancee and nubile daughter of the university's puritanical president, Dean Halsey (Robert Sampson). The final character, and the one who makes the movie work, is Dr. Carl Hill (David Gale), the school's specialist in brain surgery. He has the distinction of not only being obsessed with Megan but of wearing what appears to be the worst rug in Hollywood history. What do I know; in a movie so-bad-it's-good, it's probably his own hair. Anyway, the movie made a cult figure of Mr. Gale, and before his death in 1991 he was starting to build quite a reputation for himself in horror circles.
Moving on, we have the old missing-cat ploy used to get the ball rolling, with the cat leading Megan to places she shouldn't have been getting into. Cat lovers beware. West has apparently conquered death, but he hasn't worked out all the bugs. Seems his subjects become violent after being reanimated with his florescent green serum, and they start biting people's fingers off, among other things. The only way to stop them is to drill a hole through their heart. Among other things. When Dean Halsey finds out what the two young chaps claim to be doing, he cuts (sorry) both of them off from the university, meaning that West and Cain have to conduct their experiments in secret.
The most fascinating thing about the film is that the sillier it gets, the more increasingly enjoyable and exciting it gets, too. The further into the plot, the faster the action occurs, with a hardly a letup in the last forty minutes and getting crazier by the second. The film is jaw-droppingly awful, to be precise, but it's a scream, to be sure. By the last fifteen minutes, things go well into gross-out land, especially when Dr. Hill loses his head over Megan and attempts what has to be a first (and last) in over-the-top sexual kinkiness. Ms. Crampton braves the contest like a trouper, baring it all in the wardrobe department's least-expensive costume.
The movie is not as intentionally campy as "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," but in its gruesome and gory way, it comes close. When Dr. Hill, head in hand, threatens West, West replies, "Who's going to believe a talking head? Get a job in a sideshow!" The music from composer Richard Band is also a kick, most of the time plundering the soundtrack of Bernard Herrmann's "Psycho." If you're going to steal, steal from the best.
Still, while it's all fun and games, a strong stomach is a requirement for the crudity of some of the behavior. Be prepared for human heads being cut open, brains being extracted, skulls being crushed, limbs being severed, eyes bursting, and much grisly maiming, crippling, and other violent deportment.
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