A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Miskatonic: 30 Years of Fear with RE-ANIMATOR

1985. Horror was going through a sea change on the film front, as slashers were shown the door and creature features became the cool kids on campus again. People lined up to see vampires (Fright Night) and werewolves (Silver Bullet) and zombies (Day of the Dead), oh my—but my favorite subgenre, the Mad Scientist, came roaring back to life with director Stuart Gordon’s (From Beyond, Dagon) manic masterpiece debut, Re-Animator.

Released in October, Re-Animator proved once again that when properly executed, horror and humor are delightful bedfellows, co-conspirators with the noblest of intentions: to entertain. Horror, while certainly not easy to do well (scroll through Netflix on any given day), has it made in the shade compared to comedy. Humor is more subjective, and what rubs me as funny may chafe you as stupid or insipid. Most people will agree that The Exorcist is terrifying, but not everyone likes The Three Stooges (personal disclosure: I do. What about it?). So, how does Re-Animator pull it off? Why, 30 years later, do the laughs resonate as much as the blood-soaked scrubs?

Part of the reason is tone—Re-Animator starts at over the top, pulls up a chair, leans back and stays there for 90 minutes of pure, elevated Theatre of the Absurd. Nothing is subtle in the realm of the Mad Scientist, nor should it be. From the time Frankenstein’s monster hopped off the operating table, bigger than life was the deal of the day. The monster was usually the straight man back then, eliciting sympathy and terror in equal doses, while the doctor was portrayed (rightly so) as insane, profane (a righteous God complex), and delightfully high-octane. Re-Animator has energy and chutzpah to spare, qualities that were sorely lacking in horror when it rolled out to an unsuspecting audience back in ’85. As well, the two elements never step on each other’s toes, but rather dance beautifully together to the same song. It’s a marvel to behold.

Adapted from a series of (obscure at the time) short stories by acclaimed early 20th century horror fiction author H.P. Lovecraft, the tale goes something like this:

The film opens at the University of Zurich with—appropriately enough—screams, as our protagonist (antagonist? Both, I’d say—a very intriguing character), medical student Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs— From Beyond) stands over the flailing and wailing body of his professor, Dr. Hans Gruber, with the officials entering the scene assuming Mr. West has brought harm to Gruber, while on the contrary, West proclaims he “gave him life.”

Following animated opening credits, Mr. West relocates to Miskatonic University in Massachusetts to continue his studies, where he immediately clashes with Dr. Carl Hill (David Gale—The Brain), as both men profess to be the leading expert in brain regeneration. Seeking lodging, West rents a room from fellow student Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott—Bad Dreams), who is having a clandestine romance with Meg (Barbara Crampton—We Are Still Here), daughter of Dean Halsey (Robert Sampson—Robot Jox). Meg takes an instant dislike (and distrust) to West—if your cat doesn’t like someone, there’s usually a reason. Well, besides the fact that it’s a cat.

Anyhow, one dead pet later, Herbert shows Dan what a little fluorescent serum (the reagent used for revival) can do to put some pep in the deceased feline’s step. Amazed and excited, Dan tries to impart the news to Dean Halsey, but suspecting that Dan and Meg are together, he pulls Dan’s student loans and kicks Herbert out of school. With nothing to lose, the boys decide to up the ante and work on a human subject from the morgue. During a less than pleasurable encounter with the cadaver (imagine someone hiding Schwarzenegger’s protein bars from him), Dean Halsey is killed in the melee, only to be brought back (sort of) with a more manageable dose of the green stuff. After Halsey is put under Dr. Hill’s “care,” Hill realizes that Halsey isn’t hurt, but rather re-animated. Confronting him for the formula, Hill is decapitated by West, who proceeds to inject Hill’s head with a helping of his go-go juice. From here on out, things get weird(er)…

So how and why does a story like this come to be? I recently spoke with director Stuart Gordon, who had this to say about Re-Animator’s origins, as well as making the leap from the stage with his legendary Organic Theater Company to the world of film:

“It started with a discussion I had with a friend, and I was complaining about the fact that all they were making at the time were vampire movies. So I said, ‘Why doesn’t someone make a Frankenstein movie?’ And she mentioned these serialized stories called “Herbert West—Reanimator” by Lovecraft, and I’d never even heard of them. I finally was able to find a copy at the Chicago Public Library, and after being put on a waiting list for six months, I was able to go in and read them.

“We had done a television adaptation with PBS of one of our plays, Bleacher Bums, so I went back to them and asked about doing a miniseries based on these Lovecraft stories, and they were not at all interested. I was working on it with Dennis Paoli and William J. Norris, and people kept saying it should be longer, so we put the first and second stories together, until finally someone said, ‘Make it a feature.’ And that’s when I met Brian Yuzna (Re-Animator’s producer), and he said, ‘Put all six stories in.’ And I said, ‘What about a sequel?’ And he said, ‘You’ll be lucky if you make a movie that people want to buy a ticket for [laughs].”

The script that they ended up with walked a fine line between the camp and the carnage. “Yeah, because if you do both at the same time they cancel each other out,” the director said, “so you really do have to build up tension and then relieve with a laugh. It is a tightrope act, really.” Casting a wide, multicolored net below the high wire is the look of the film, a lurid landscape fleshed out by Gordon’s ingenuity and an artist’s inspiration.

“When I was in high school, I was majoring in commercial arts, so I could draw—I did a lot of the storyboards for the movie. I was very influenced by some of the great comic book artists—the one I really love is Bernie Wrightson,” said Gordon. “He did Swamp Thing, Tales from the Crypt, Eerie—and he’s got this very distinctive look with great angles, so a lot of times I was mimicking Bernie. Later on, I got to work with him on several things as a conceptual artist for me. We got to be friends.”

One of the most remarkable things about Re-Animator is how assured of a directorial debut it is. Gordon shows great poise behind the camera, creating a carnival-like atmosphere, gracefully juggling all the elements for our amusement. However, to help achieve this, Gordon became a student of the modern horror film.

“Brian Yuzna screened just about every movie that had come out in the last five years so I could catch up with what was being done in horror. I saw Sam Raimi’s stuff, I remember seeing Driller Killer and a bunch of other films, but the one that really grabbed me was Rosemary’s Baby. I was just knocked out by how it was shot. I ended up watching that film over and over again. I think of that as my film school. Polanski had such a great way of shooting that movie. He made it so subjective, you really feel like it’s happening to you. And I tried to capture that with Re-Animator.”

Of course, without the right cast, the whole affair would fall apart under its own incredulity. Luckily, he picked the right ensemble. Abbott and Crampton have an easy rapport as the young lovers, and Gale exhibits a stuffy fanaticism played perfectly against Combs’ bombastic performance as West. All of the performers ride the same ridiculous wavelength, finding the wit in the wreckage. Ever resourceful, Gordon was able to use his theater background to not only assist with finding the right actors, but ensure the smoothest production.

“I had a casting director who used to go see a lot of plays and that’s how he found Jeffrey Combs. And as soon as Jeffrey walked in and started reading, I knew this was the guy. My feeling is that if you do theater, you can do anything. It really separates the men from the boys.

“We rehearsed for a week or two before we started shooting and that was really helpful. Which I discovered later is something very seldom done in film, they don’t rehearse—that just is amazing and kind of appalling to me. It can help you so much, especially on a tight schedule like we were. So it was very helpful that they had strong theater backgrounds.”

Re-Animator was that rare beast at the time of its release: a horror film with rave reviews from mainstream critics, from Roger Ebert to Janet Maslin praising the ghoulish hijinks and blood-soaked mayhem. The film made its money back at the box office, but really flourished on home video where adolescents (and more than a few adults) could indulge in a soon-to-be genre staple that may have been low on class, but possessed more than enough classic grue and gags to fill the tank. Finally, I asked Mr. Gordon to reflect on the legacy of his debut.

“Well, I’m really very grateful that audiences are still enjoying the film, and watching it at all. I think part of it is the movie is so outrageous, it really hasn’t dated all that much. It’s shocking to people. That’s one of the reasons it hasn’t been remade. They’re afraid to remake Re-Animator because it would never get an R rating [laughs]. My feeling is that people can still enjoy this movie, and why not? Let them see the original.”

Between West’s preening bon mots, Dr. Hill’s leering instability, and plenty of outrageous effects and lascivious behavior, Re-Animator proves that horror is always waiting to be reborn—it just needs the right mix of serum.