Cheap Re-Animator (Millennium Edition) (DVD) (Stuart Gordon) Price

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Customer Reviews of Re-Animator (Millennium Edition)

Good for nostalgia fans, but not those new to this film
I'm going to assume you've read the plotline above, so I'll skip it and provide my two cents. I'm a huge sci-fi and horror movie fan and this is a movie that I've always wanted to see, but for some reason, I never go around to it. I finally rented it 6 months ago (8/2005) and was very disappointed. This is a movie that has not aged well at all. I'm sure the special effects were state of the art at some time, but they are clearly a joke now. If you've been a fan of the movie for a long time, I apologize. I'm sure it has lots of nostalgia value for people who saw it when it first came out. I feel that way about a lot of movies from the 1980s, like Prince of Darkness, The Thing, etc, so I'm not knocking the film from this perspective. If you haven't seen this movie and you're thinking about breaking down and buying it to fill out your collection hoping that it will be good because all of the other reviews here are 5 stars, please don't. It's not worth it. This movie is only for long standing fans who saw it first "back in the day" and want to relive a good memory.

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Blood, Guts, and Gore: What's Not to Love?
A movie like Stuart Gordon's "Re-Animator" is enough to make you rethink everything you ever thought about horror movies. How is it that such a puerile and disgusting film can be so much fun to watch? It's probably because it doesn't even attempt to take itself seriously. What we have is a zombie flick with generous hints of dark humor thrown in for good measure: a classic combination that could easily satisfy even the most devoted fans of Dario Argento or George A. Romero. And why shouldn't it? The satire in this film is beyond plentiful, not the least of which comes in the form of obscenely over the top gore effects. At one point, a length of intestine flies out of a headless body and wraps itself around actor Jeffery Combs. It was so gross that I wanted to turn away and so funny that I just couldn't bring myself to do it. <
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>Loosely adapted from H.P. Lovecraft's short story "Herbert West--Reanimator," this film proves that a well intentioned but implausible story idea can be turned into cinematic gold (splattered with blood and guts, of course). We meet Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott), a young medical student studying at the Miskatonic University Medical School in Arkham, Massachusetts. He's eager and determined, almost to the point of wasted effort (as seen when he tries to revive a woman terminally affected by cardiac arrest). He's also well respected by Dean Allan Halsey (Robert Sampson), whose daughter, Meg (Barbara Crampton) is in love with Cain. <
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>His world is turned upside down when he meets Herbert West (Jeffery Combs), a student of an odd and brooding sort, always seeming detached when engaged in conversation. When asked what his field of study was, he replies simply, "Death." This doesn't sound too many alarms ... that is, until he meets Dr. Carl Hill (David Gale, introduced to the audience as he's using a laser to lobotomize a cadaver). Right away the two become bitter rivals over theories of postmortem brain function and controlling the will of the brainstem. This brings out the worst in Hill, not only igniting vindictiveness, but obsession, as well; let's just say that his fascination with Meg may be a little deeper than initially suspected. <
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>Things continue to go downhill when West rents out a room in Cain's new home. Cain and Meg are clearly bothered by West's reclusive behavior, and it reaches a crescendo when they discover the body of Cain's beloved cat, Rufus, lying in West's mini refrigerator. They also discover a medicine bottle containing a phosphorescent green liquid, a volatile concoction later revealed to be a biological reagent. Basically, West has created a serum capable of bringing the dead back to life. <
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>Isn't this just the kind of plot that goes perfectly with a blatantly twisted horror/comedy? I certainly think it is, and it reveals itself not a moment too soon. That's because things start to get ugly, and they only get uglier when West and Cain sneak into the morgue and attempt to re-animate a relatively fresh cadaver. What happens is a gruesome sight to behold, and while the scene plays itself as a serious moment, the bold, blood soaked sequence of events is so accentuated that you just know the director is having the time of his life behind the camera. I guess that's the correct mindset; how can excessive gore NOT be fun (and I'm not being sarcastic when I say that)? It seemed as if everyone in this film gets drenched in a sticky mess of stage blood at one point or another; I was surprised the celluloid itself wasn't tinted a bright shade of red. The manufacturers of that stuff must have gotten rich off of this one. <
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>But the incident in the morgue is only the first in a series of ill-fated attempts, and it culminates in a scene with an entire group of re-animated corpses wreaking havoc. It plays out like an overcharged movie projector: the action quick and random, their movements chaotic and sloppy. But I could tell that this was done on purpose, because "Re-Animator" was meant to be a campy experience. The actors seemed to have had that in mind as they played their roles; only an intentionally created B movie could benefit from A level performances. You have to admit that for such a low-grade production, the acting is actually quite good. (It makes me wonder why such talent was often wasted on typecast roles in post-"Re-Animator" projects; has Jeffery Combs ever played someone who wasn't insane, evil, or disturbed?) If they had hired actors who were told to not bother with a specific performance style, to just play the scenes out normally, I think this would have been one lousy, uninspired film. <
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>The satire doesn't end with the performances. We also have Richard Band's music, an admittedly not-so-subtle reinterpretation of Bernard Herman's "Psycho" score. If you can, hear that serious, psychologically based music in your head for just a moment. Now imagine that music being reused in a film that includes a living severed head trying to rape a bound, naked woman (if that isn't satirical enough, then I don't know what is). I've heard that Band originally wanted to include some kind of acknowledgement for Herman during the end credits, but was unable to due to budget constraints. I can certainly believe that money was an issue, considering there are virtually no special effects and very few sets (if I'm not mistaken, a lot of this was filmed in an actual hospital). <
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>"Re-Animator" is the kind of film that doesn't revel in its goriness; it completely depends on it. It's probably not something that fans of the original Lovecraft story would appreciate, nor should they; the film version is so far removed from the source material that the title is practically the only thing establishing a connection. I think that, for maximum viewing pleasure, you just have to go with the flow--leave behind any notions of good taste or decent principles and immerse yourself in pure horror delight. Movies take on different meanings for different people, and it goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway) that this movie isn't for everyone. There is, after all, a reason it was originally released without a rating (although an expanded R rated version does exist; all of the extra scenes from it are included on this DVD). <
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>I think that one of the film's TV spots said it best: "This is not an advertisement for a new movie. This is a warning!" The same can be said for this review; if you cringe at the sight of blood and if you can't see the humor in driving a bone saw through the torso of a destructive zombie, then steer clear of "Re-Animator." But if you get a real kick out of this kind of filmmaking, see it the first chance you get. It's sick, it's excessive, and most importantly, it guarantees that willing participants will have a good time watching it.

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NEVER a classic, but good fun
Those who consider this a serious horror film have, I'm sorry to say, missed the whole point of the genre. Almost from the opening scene, it's obvious that Re-Animator is intentionally an over-the-top spoof masquerading as a serious horror flick, much in the Ed Wood mode, but not quite as bad. And it's an ejoyable romp, from the very deliberate (one would hope, anyway) overacting and scenery-chomping to the in-your-face gore to the major plot holes, the whole thing works to become a really off-the-wall yet amusing and eminently watchable film. But it IS a black somedy; there's no mistaking that. Go into it that way and you'll have a good time watching it. Watch it expecting a "real" horror flick, and you'll be disappointed.