Dear scientists: Stop bringing things back to life!
A fairly recent but quickly beloved tradition of mine is that for each night of October, I watch a horror movie or a Halloween movie. Over the past four years I’ve watched everything from creepy classics to friendly family delights. Nothing is off the table. I usually watch a lot of cherished movies that are favourites of mine while still being mindful to watch never before seen movies as well. Which is how I ended up watching the well-acted but psychological snoozefest, The Blackcoat’s Daughter (2015). That movie was so slow-moving and so needlessly convoluted that I needed a good old-fashioned kind of horror movie to wash the pretentious crud out of my eyes. Which is how I ended up watching the exceedingly gory but never boring cult classic, Re-Animator (1985). Wow…what a stark difference from The Blackcoat’s Daughter! By the way…what the heck is a blackcoat?
Loosely based on H.P. Lovecraft’s serial novelette, “Herbert West-Reanimator,” Re-Animator follows Herbert West, an odd medical student who engages in bizarre experiments focusing on the re-animation of dead tissue. As a result, he puts the lives of those around him in grave danger.
Look. As a lover of horror stories, I’m here to tell you that no good ever comes from those who play around with the laws of death. Whether it’s cheating death, reversing death, or mastering death, rarely does it work out well for those who tamper with it. You’d think with the number times these themes have been traversed, protagonists would know better by now. It extends as far back as Frankenstein (1931), a precursor to Re-Animator, and Pet Sematary (2019) which is a successor of sorts. Funnily enough, both of those movies are based on novels as well! By the way, check out my reviews for those movies, here and here.
Re-Animator is short, sweet and successful in its storytelling. I’m a fan of any horror movie that plays out like it could have been an episode of Tales from the Crypt (1989 – 1996) or American Horror Stories (2021 – present). The story is straightforward and intriguing, with a simplistic plot that keeps you thinking just as much as it keeps you screaming. The movie makes you ponder things like morality and the misuse of science without hitting you over the head with the concepts or trying to cleverly hide them in elaborate metaphors. What a lot of older horror movies did so fantastically was explore these heavy themes while still managing to tell an exciting, chilling story that keeps you on the edge of your seat and terrifies you. It’s part of why I love the horror genre. There are so many different tones, ways and styles in which to tell a story.
The style that Re-Animator is going for is a classic one for the 1980s: Full of gore, nudity, body horror and dark comedy. God, I miss the spectacularly gory effects and all out bloody wildness of ’80s horror movies. Having just watched The Evil Dead (1981) and Evil Dead II (1987) my love and appreciation for that kind of filmmaking has only grown. The amazing body horror that this movie is able to accomplish with makeup and effects is jaw-dropping. They’re fantastic. I think that’s why a lot of modern horror movies don’t scare like the classics do. With an over reliance on CGI and not enough utilization of practical gore, you just aren’t capable of getting the same horrified reaction out of people. Re-Animator is a great horror movie but needless to say it’s definitely not for anyone whose stomach gets upset easily.
Re-Animator probably isn’t the first movie that comes to mind when you think of ’80s horror movies, but if you’re the type of person who lives for an ’80s horror, than you absolutely have to give this a watch. I really enjoyed this movie! Gee, I suppose that means I have to go ahead and watch Bride of Re-Animator (1990) now, don’t I?
Have you seen Re-Animator?
Let me know in the comments or on social media!
Luke's Living Room 