Re-Animator - Lisa's Review

I approached this weeks movie with a little trepidation as I was aware it had a mix of the two things known to not especially appeal to me - comedy & horror.  It's one of those 80's movies that seem to have slipped under the radar for me.  I grew up on crappy 80's horror (mostly Stephen King) due to having a dad who was horror obsessed.  So, I have to honestly say when I watched this one I was pleasantly surprised.  It can be added to the massive list of 2 movies where I felt comedy and horror meshed well (Shaun of the dead & Evil Dead - Army of Darkness).

So, yup I actually liked this one.  I felt the comedy was genuinely funny and the gory bits where genuinely full of that ick factor it should be.  I felt a very similar feel when watching this movie as I did when watching Shaun of the Dead.  Although it is funny, the horror was no less horrific than in a straight horror movie.

So, in the unlikely event that any reader has not actually watched this movie, a bit of a premise?   Medical student Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) has invented an illuminous green reagent which he claims brings the dead back to life.  After a bit of a major boo boo while studying at the University of Zurich, he injects too much reagent when attempting to bring his professor back to life and there are horrific side effects.

Herbert moves to New England in America to continue his studies and of course his experiment with his reagent.  He lodges with a fellow student Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott) and is soon experimenting on Dans dead cat, discovered by Dans fiancee Megan.  Megan just so happens to be the daughter of the university Dean Dr Halsey.  Dr Halsey has been turned against Herbert by a professor at the university Dr Hill for reasons which you can pick up if you watch the movie.

As the movie progresses we have more attempted reanimations by Herbert and his unwitting assistant Dan.  I won't go into detail about who and why, but it's excellent!  We have decapitations, zombies aplenty, talking severed heads and flying severed arms.  The effects are fantastic for the time and even are impressive by todays standards.  The comedy used amidst all the horror is genuinely funny (and that's saying something coming from me as I'm notoriously difficult to make laugh when it comes to staged laughs).

I would say that there was one negative to the film for me.  Just one scene which I thought wasn't required and was a bit inappropriate as far as I was concerned.  It made me cringe more than I was comfortable with.  I won't go into detail about what it was, but Will should know instantly.  I will advise it was a scene with Megan, her father Dr Halsey and Dr Hill.

The good far outweighed the bad though as it was only 1 scene I was uncomfortable with.  The same may not be the case for others watching  the movie, I can just write about how I felt.  This is the first movie in a long time I feel I can recommend.  At last, there it is!! Recommended!!