FILM FRENZY

Jeffrey Combs in Re-Animator (Photos: Ignite Films & Eagle Rock Pictures)

By Matt Brunson

RE-ANIMATOR (1985)
★★★ (out of four)
DIRECTED BY Stuart Gordon
STARS Bruce Abbott, Jeffrey Combs

It may not stand head and shoulders above its peers from the period (e.g. The Evil Dead), but as far as tongue-in-bloody-cheek gore fests go, Re-Animator is a lot of fun, and it easily earns its cult status.

I fondly recall first seeing this update of the H.P. Lovecraft tale not long after its original theatrical release, as part of an all-night Halloween triple feature at the long-defunct Town Cinema near UNC-Charlotte. After thrilling to George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead and then slowly being put to sleep by some dull Italian horror yarn, audience members collectively jolted in their seats circa 4 a.m., awakened (re-animated?) by the feverish opening sequence of this adrenaline-fueled exercise in splatter.

Jeffrey Combs (very funny) plays Herbert West, a young medical student who discovers a way to revivify first a cat, then a cadaver, and finally deceased colleagues within his university’s science department. Bruce Campbell stand-in Bruce Abbott plays Dan Cain, the nice-guy graduate student who becomes West’s reluctant accomplice, Barbara Crampton co-stars as Cain’s fiancée, and David Gale portrays the professor who plots to steal both West’s discovery and Cain’s girl. All of this leads to the movie’s most notorious sequence, which lends a lurid new twist to the expression “giving head.”

Since first thrilling home audiences on VHS, then DVD, then Blu-ray, Re-Animator has now been brought to the 4K UHD format in splendid fashion by Ignite Films and Eagle Rock Pictures. In time for its 40th anniversary, the movie has been made available in four editions: the standard Blu-ray edition, the standard 4K edition, the 4K + Blu-ray Deluxe Edition Box Set, and the 4K + Blu-ray Ultimate Limited Edition Box Set. The standard versions come with a slipcover; the Deluxe Edition includes collector’s art cards and a hardcover book with interviews and essays; and the Ultimate Edition offers the cards, the book, and Dr. Hill Collector’s Bobblehead, although, as per Ignite Films, “Please note: This edition is currently impacted by newly imposed tariffs, specifically affecting the Dr. Hill bobblehead.” (In other words, yet something else negatively impacted by the actions of His Vileness. But I digress.)

All editions contain the 86-minute theatrical cut and the 105-minute Integral Version, and all include both new and legacy bonus features. New bonus features include a new conversation with Combs, Crampton, and producer Brian Yuzna; a look at the film’s influence; a piece on Re-Animator: The Musical; and a featurette on the 4K restoration. Legacy bonus features include audio commentary by Gordon; audio commentary by Gordon, Yuzna, Abbott, Combs, Crampton, and co-star Robert Sampson; the feature-length  documentary Re-Animator Resurrectus; a discussion with composer Richard Brand; deleted and extended scenes; and Combs reading Lovecraft’s original story.