RE-ANIMATOR

1985 Directed by Stuart Gordon

A.K.A. Got Head? (okay, I couldn't resist. I'm a terrible person now.)

Plot Howard Phillips Lovecraft wrote "Herbert West: Re-Animator" when he was young, as a serial to pay the bills. He is on record as claiming it to be one of his worst pieces of writing. Regardless of what he thought, the story easily remains both his most guesome story, and probably the least ambiguous in terms of monsters, which of course makes it ripe for adaptation. We start with a delirously bloody opening tableau, wherein a scientist's head melts and bursts simultaneously, while his assistant, Dr. Herbert West defends himself to the onlookers by shouting "I didn't kill him! I gave him LIFE!" Cue the opening credits. Yeah, it's one of those types of movies. Cut to a little further ahead in time, where we center on Miskatonic University Hospital, in bustling Arkham, Massachusetts. There we meet student doctor Dan Cain, an average struggling college resident. He gets hassled by his superiors, he's secretly dating the dean's daughter, he's obsessed with saving lives...you know, the usual. While at the morgue, filing paperwork after he lost a patient, he's introduced to West, who recently transfered from Europe (thankfully without a silly accent.) We also meet Dr. Hill, a class act a-hole, who either looks down on all others' work, or steals it for his own glory. In case you haven't realised it yet, Dan is the foil in this here picture, and Hill is the heel. It doesn't help that West also gives Dan the heebs... Later, Dan and his girlfriend, Meg, are having some red-hot young-doctors-in-love sex, and afterwards when Meg goes to leave, they open the door to find West standing there with an ad for a room to rent he found. Considering the state of undress Dan was in with Meg when West arrived, it's quite the renter's market. And with that, West now has a nice, modest sized basement to use as his lab. Later, Meg is over looking for Dan's cat, and notices the door to West's room is open, so she looks in to see if the cat wandered in there. She also notices his mini-fridge is open and goes to shut it, but then realizes that inside is the cat--dead! Dan comes running, and then West comes home. He's outraged that they came into his room, but explains that the cat got its head stuck in a jar and died. He had to go to class and couldn't stay to explain. He then gives the greatest quote of all time: "What was I supposed to do, Dan? Leave a note saying 'Cat dead, details later.'??" Greatest. Line. Ever. And on that note, the dark comedy of the film takes over. Later, Dan walks down to the basement to find West struggling in a fight with what appears to be the cat, then killing it. He explains how he has created a serum that re-animates dead tissue. One downside is that it seems to make patients insanely violent. He then demonstrates by re-re-animating the cat, to create the silliest man vs. animal fight ever. Even the actors are stifling giggles at the madness of this movie by this point. West theorizes that this is because his subjects haven't been "fresh" enough, and decomposition has affected the brain. Convinced that the reagent works, Dan takes West to the morgue with him for his shift, to try it on the more fresh corpses. We all can see that being a good plan, I'm sure. Two problems present themselves during their grand experiment: One, their test subject is STILL too old, and takes a while to get life back in it. Two, the dean walks in just as ol' Mr. Body starts going into his murderous rage. D'oh! After all is said and done, our two young scientists now have two corpses in front of them. Considering that the dean had just died, he's surely fresh enough of a guinea pig. And they're right! He doesn't get violent when he's re-animated. He does, however, seem to be in a near-vegitative state though. Meanwhile, thanks to the commotion and craziness, our daring duo get in trouble, and the dean is taken into "personal care" by Dr. Hill. It doesn't take long for for Hill to figure out what the major malfunction is with his superior, and decides to keep the discovery quiet by shutting the man up with a frontal lobotomy, then goes off to pay a little visit to dear sweet Herbert. When he gets down to the basement lab, he somehow hypnotises West into giving him both the formula and the credit for the reagent. When west snaps out of his whammy attack, he retaliates against Hill with a shovel, which ends up beheading him. Always the scientist, West then decides to reanimate Hill in two separate pieces. Then while the head yells at and berates West, his body sneaks up and coldcocks him. After some headless slapstick, it becomes apparent that the hoodoo that Hill do so well allows him to command the re-animated by will alone. And what he wills is to have the dean kidnap his own daughter so Hill can do...something unmentionably unpleasant to her, creating the ballsiest pun in film history. Meanwhile, Dan and West realize they have to go rescue Meg from Hill and his undead minions. I assure you that things can only get crazier from here, though...

Rating I give Re-animator: Four and One Half Rotting Shambling Corpses out of Five. You know, I'd say that, surprisingly, out of all the Lovecraft adaptations out there (with perhaps the exception of the Masters of Horror episode "Dreams in the Witch House" also helmed by Stuart Gordon,) this is the most accurate. Of course, to quantify that, you have to ignore the sex and relocate the action 80 years prior to the actual film events, but still...most accurate Lovecraft adaptation. Cat dead. Details later.

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