|
assistant Dan begin re-animating
corpses and encounter no end of problems. Really, if viewed
in the proper light, this film drips black-comedy, even though
the movie isn't played for laughs. West's dialog is filled with
smart and snappy comments and one quickly comes to like the
character of Herbert West.
Of course, this movie is also well known for how extreme is
gets. An in your face mixture of sex and blood that has inspired
at least one adult film (see Re-Penetrator)
to date, Re-Animator was pretty shocking for its time
and the un-rated version of this film still has the ability
to shock some people. A few people out there might say that
filming a sex scene between a co-ed and a severed head would
be a bit much, ok MOST people would say that, but with the high
camp value of this movie it actually works.
Of course, this movies bears
little resemblance to the work of Lovecraft, which really was
the beginning of a long trend of Director Stuart Gordon. He
has gone on to make two more movies in this series and dragged
a few other Lovecraft stories over the coals as well. His latest,
"Dagon" at least seems
to capture some of the exotic fear that Lovecraft worked so
hard to create. You'll not find that here though, just gore
and lots of it.
I am fortunate enough to own
the special "Millennium Edition" DVD and so there
are all sorts of goodies on the two disk set. I think that it
all probably could have fit on one disk, but perhaps not. In
any case, the extended and cut scenes are by far the best addition.
There is a scene in particular with Dr. West, that really shows
you just how driven the character is as you realize that he
is shooting up with re-agent to keep working.
The DVD set also includes interviews,
TV Spots....it is just loaded up with extras. I for one, love
this movie, even if it isn't a good one.
-Bob Brinkman
Special thanks to Bob Brinkman
for allowing me to use this review.
|
