Tag Line : Death is just the beginning...

Based on the story "Herbert West, Re-Animator" by horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, Re-Animator tells the tale of a brilliant (but somewhat mad) young scientist, who's invented this glowing green "goo" that can bring the dead back to life.

Having spent several years studying the overcoming of brain death, young Herbert West (Jeffrey Coombes) has just moved his research studies to the Miskatonic college hospital in Massachusetts, much to the dismay of the resident lecturer Dr Hill (David Gale), who he proceeds to constantly argue with.

However, following an incident in the morgue, where Dr West and his college chum Dan Cain (Bruce Abbot) had been conducting some extremely unethical experiments on the corpses with his re-animation agent , Dr Hill finds out about West's research and attempts to steal it for himself.

Not-with-standing, West decapitates him with a shovel and proceeds to use his headless body for some re-animation experiments. Of course, the now undead Dr Hill isn't too happy about all this and so, in an extremely funny sequence, his re-animated body knocks out Dr West, steals his re-animation fluid and after picking up his head, kidnaps Dan's girlfriend Megan (Barbara Crampton), who he prepares to do some rather unsavoury things to!

Dr West and Dan come to the rescue, leading to an extremely gory final battle sequence in the hospital morgue, as they attempt to free Megan and defeat the re-animated Dr Hill, whilst fending off the hordes of corpses he's reactivated . Body parts go flying everywhere and blood spills by the bucketful during the ensuing battle, Dr Hills body explodes and his head gets crushed by one of the zombies, corpses get their limbs hacked off and West gets throttled by Dr Hills intestines after the resultant body explosion (lovely stuff!).

Overall this is a fairly cool film, exceptionally gory and very darkly humoured, it's pretty much like a modern day, zombiefied version of Frankenstein. If you love gore and mayhem you'll love this, and whilst the BBFC approved version is heavily censored it's still highly enjoyable viewing.

Overall marks : 7/10

Other Information.

• Alternate tag line, "Herbert West has a very good head on his shoulders - and another one in a dish on his desk".

• There have been numerous collaborations between Director Stuart Gordon, producer Brian Yuzna and stars Jeffrey Coombs and Barbara Crampton. Amongst them "Castle Freak", and the H.P. Lovecraft tales "From Beyond" and "Necronomicon".

• Jeffrey Coombs has starred in numerous horror films over the years, most recently in "I Still Know what you did Last Summer" and "House on Haunted Hill", but is probably best known to Star Trek fans for his portrayal of the characters Weyouun (the Vorta) and Brunt (the Ferengi). Coombs also had a guest starring role in Brian Yuzna's "Mutronics the Movie", alongside David Gale. Playing the character "Dr East" (there's a joke there somewhere).

• Prior to 2007, all UK editions of this film were cut by varying degrees by the BBFC. The first British release by Entertainment distributors was very heavily censored, which removed 1m42s. The scene's that upset the UK censors were the pre-credits eye-popping, Dr West killing a zombie with a bonesaw, the decapitation of Dr Hill and the headless rape scene, as this broke several BBFC taboo's (so we didn't actually get to see the head giving "head" so to speak). The end battle was also cut, removing the scenes of Dr Hill's eye's being gouged and a zombie bleeding from the eyes. The 2001 UK re-issue by Tartan was less heavily censored, re-instating all the previously excised gore, but still removed the scene where Dr Hill's head molesting Megan (Barbara Crampton).

• The full uncut version was finally passed by the UK censors in 2007 and released by Anchor Bay in April of that year. The film had also been shown uncut on UK TV earlier that year by Channel 4.

• The film was passed uncut in Australia, however the state of Queensland originally refused to allow the film to be shown, so for that one state the heavily censored UK theatrical version had to be used.

• The film was released uncut without a rating in the US (where film classification is voluntary, however certain cinemas will refuse to show unrated films). The film makers later released a cut version with an R rating in order to reach a wider audience , which was almost as heavily censored as the old UK theatrical version. However, to make up the films running time they included several deleted scenes that had been cut out of the original version, so this version actually ran longer. The R rated version was released onto US video in the early 90's alongside the unrated version, however all DVD and laserdiscs releases have been of the original uncut, unrated version, which have contained the deleted scenes as extras.

• There was a "dream sequence" filmed in which Dan Cain wheels a body into the morgue, only to discover it's actually Megan, however this was ultimately not used as the director felt it gave to much of the plot away too soon. This can be found as an extra on the US unrated laserdisc and DVD.

Cast & Crew

Theatrical trailer. (1.61MB)

The Head gives "Head" (so to speak). (1.34MB)

Buy the UK DVD (uncut spec-ed).

Buy H.P. Lovecraft Omnibus Book 1.

Buy H.P. Lovecraft Omnibus Book 2.
(featuring Re-Animator)

Buy other H.P. Lovecraft books.

Buy the US DVD (uncut spec-ed).

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