The 31 Days of Horror, Day Eleven- Re-Animator (1985)

"So what kind of medicine are you involved in?"
"Death."

After finding this one on Blu-ray last night at our local Best Buy (for only $9.99, mind you), we had to switch our original plan for last night's watching, and go with this classic instead.

As films based off of H.P. Lovecraft's books go, not many of them were ever good. Lovecraft had some grand ideas that were a bit... insane, and they've just seldom translated to the big screen well. Our personal favorite Lovecraft flick is Stuart Gordon's From Beyond; there's so much about that one that is just awesome, that we could talk about it for hours.

Running a close second though, is Re-Animator. Both films were directed by Stuart Gordon, both stared Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton, and both movies we're just crazy good.

Classics, both actor and character.

Re-Animator is basically a twist on the Frankenstein story, involving a demented doctor trying to re-animate corpses, because he's a creep. Needless to say, thing do not go scientifically well at all, and all kinds of crazy shit goes down.

Some parts of this movie were funny, some parts were genuinely creepy, and the whole affair was drenched in 25 gallons of blood. Literally. Jeffrey Combs was just tongue-in-cheek brilliant as the unhinged doctor Herbert West, and of course Barbara Crampton was sexy as hell. The naked kind of sexy. David Gale was a hell of a bad guy too, playing Dr, Hill to perfection.

Head games.

What makes Re-Animator so good, and so fun to watch, is the fact that the movie does some crazy things, and just doesn't give a shit. For example, a re-animated corpse that has been beheaded picks up its head and goes down on the buck naked Barbara Crampton. Dead as a doornail and decapitated, and this guy's instinct is still to get him some of that yum-yum... wow.

Aside from being overtly gory, twisted and violent, the movie is just so oddly different that many of its parts seem brilliant. To we twisted horror fans, anyhow.

The old 'Cat in a fridge' trick.

Nearly 30 years later, this movie has itself a strong cult following, and rightly so; it's one of the best, freshest horror offerings to have come out of the 80's, and stands up well against flicks from any decade.

It's a true classic. Oh, and by the way, it looks pretty damned good on Blu-ray.

Damn censorship!

Barbara Crampton.