Re-Animator (The Millennium Edition)

Re-Animator (The Millennium Edition)

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Movie Reviews of Re-Animator (The Millennium Edition)

Movie Review: The best horror movie of the 80's.
Summary: 5 Stars

Plot:Dan Cain has it all, he's a bright medical student,he's on good terms with the dean and he's dating the dean's pretty daughter. But everything comes to a halt, when a eccentric,brillant med student named Herbert West comes to room with him after he got thrown out of a Swiss University for the accidental death of his mentor.Things get out of control when Dan finds out Herbert can bring dead animals back to life using a green glow in the dark serum. Soon, West wants to try his serum on dead human beings,but their's only one problem these dead people aren't too happy when their brought back to life,which ends up causing a lot of mayhem. But, their work dosen't go unnoticed, Dr. Hill, a chief nero-surgeon and teacher who has butted heads with West since his arrival,realizes Herbert's potential and wants to steal West's green serum for himself,so he can become famous. Of course, West isn't about to let that happen, so Dr.Hill ends up being decapitated.Curosity kills Herbert, since he's never brought dead parts to life,so he ends up sticking his green goo into Hill, the result is, Herbert gets knocked out,Hill gets away and steal's his re-animaton work. Now West has to get his work back, with the help of Dan(Hill also has it out for Dan, since he lusts after Dan's girlfriend, Meg and has now kidnapped her)and all this leads to a gory climax.

Review: Re-Animator is a rare breed, considering all the slasher movies that came out in the 80's,it was something completely different.It took the old mad scientist genre and the zombie genre and put a fresh spin on it. The result was reviviting, scary, horror comedy. It was the perfect balance between horror and some subtle comedy. This is what the abysmal CABIN FEVER tried to be last year, but failed completely.The movie is also scary and suspenseful, who wasn't scared when the cat in the basement jumped out of nowhere or seeing Dr. Hill's head in that tray? BRRRRRR. Those are just a couple of the horrifying moments throughout the movie.

The movie also works on a character level because screenwriters Dennis Paloi,Stuart Gordon and William J. Norris,gives you time to get know everyone on screen.The result is you care about every character.The most interesting one of the bunch is no doubt, Herbert West.Sure, he's cocky and egocentric,but we never learn he has any kind of evil motive for he what's doing, he just wants to put an end to death.Another cool character is Dr.Hill, he's relentless in pursuit of what he wants. Even after he's been beheaded, he still wants to have sex with Meg,which leads to the movie's most infamous scene and gives new meaning to giving head.We also find a perfect romance between Dan and Meg. Which is very well drawn out and is never cheesy.

The characters also wouldn't work as well on screen, if it wasn't for the actors protraying them. Jeffrey Combs is no doubt the highlight of the movie. His protrayl of the wide eyed, intense West is dead on. Bruce Abbott gives extremely solid performance as straight-laced Dan Cain. His chemstry with Combs is impeccable. Barbara Crampton does well as the pretty girlfriend. She and Abbott have wonderful romantic chemstry together.David Gale also steals the show as Dr.Hill,he had a Karloff like presence to him.Robert Sampson is also great as the dean of the medical school.This is one the best assembled casts ever in a horror movie.

First time director Stuart Gordon directs the movie very well,it's compently helmed and well paced,it's a very good job.
While their's a few nices shots here and there, the movie is not extremely stylish,but it's still very well done.Gordon also knows how to time suspense and knows how to scare you. Their's also no false scares in this movie which is a huge sigh of relief,since horror movies heavly rely on that so much. There's also an uneasy atmosphere through out the whole movie,putting you on the edge of your seat.Photograher Mac Alhberg, who did most of the work for movie, is fantastic,he gives the basement scenes a dark look and gives the moruge scenes a creepy florescent look.A job well done in the photography department as well.

The gore F/X is also great, considering that they were working with a limited budget. The F/X by Anthony Doublin, John Naulin and John Carl Beuchler are excellent. The gore is layed on thick and the climatic gory morgue scene is something legends are made of.

While it rips off the Psycho score, Richard Band's music for the movie is wonderful.The score is nicely done and enduring. You should definatly pick up the soundtrack for this movie,although it's somewhat hard to find.

In the end, Re-Animator is a horror classic and my #3 favorite movie of all time. It's too bad horror movie these days don't even come close to greatness of this movie. Instead were left with movies like CABIN FEVER, and JEEPERS CREEPERS 2, just to name a couple.Horror movies these days just don't have what it takes to be good.All in all,go and see this brilliant masterpiece,you won't be disappointed.

Elite Entertainment has released an excellent 2-disc Millennium Edition of this movie. It contains a widescreen(1:851) transfer,remastered in Dolby Digital 5.1,DTS 5.1, there's also the original mono soundtrack for all you purists out there.There's also Richard Band's isolated musical soundtrack presented in Dolby Digital 5.1,two commentries, one with Director Stuart Gordon, the other with producer Brian Yuzna,actors Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott,Robert Sampson and actress Barbara Crampton. Disc two has the 16 extended scenes from the R-rated version and the infamous dream sequence deleted scene. It also contains new interviews with Stuart Gordon,Brian Yuzna,Screenwriter Dennis Paoli,two diffrent segments with Composer Richard Band and an interview with Fangoria editor Anthony Timpone. We also get 3 storyboard to film comparsions, a behind the scenes photo gallery ,extensive bios of the cast and crew, the original theatical trailer and five tv spots.If you love this movie buy the DVD it's worth it.