Re-Animator Dual 4K UHD/Blu-ray Limited Edition and Standard Edition (1985) Review
Re-Animator Dual 4K UHD/Blu-ray Limited Edition and Standard Edition (1985) Review
Director Stuart Gordon’s acclaimed Eighties cult classic Re-animator was adapted loosely from a short story written by American horror fiction writer H.P. Lovecraft. Along with Dennis Paoli and William J. Norris, Gordon adapted the story with the intention of making a TV series. Realising that shooting a period piece upped the cost of filming the team opted to update their tale to a modern-day setting.
Finding little interest in the format he was offering – half-hour TV programs – Gordon, convinced by special effects technician Bob Greenberg, approached producer Brian Yuzna about making a film series instead. The film series would be sourced from the works of Lovecraft; in the same way director Roger Corman did successfully with Edgar Allan Poe’s material in the Sixties. Yuzna was sold on the idea and between them they birthed a defining horror flick with Re-animator in the process.
Dedicated medical student Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott), and his fiancée Megan Halsey (Barbara Crampton), are drawn into the bizarre world of his roommate Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) and his outlandish experiments. West is re-animating dead tissue and is keen to draw in the initially reluctant Cain into assisting him with his Frankenstein-styled plans.
However, faculty member Doctor Carl Hill (David Gale) has designs on taking ownership of West’s discovery and making them his own. Bad move! West decapitates him and then stupidly reanimates Hill’s severed head and separated body. Hill is an enterprising fellow and makes full use of this development leading to a bloody showdown in West’s morgue hideout.
Achieving critical success, a rare feat for a genre film, Re-animator failed to please genre fans. Fans of Lovecraft’s writing saw, what they considered to be its exploitative treatment of the material, as an affront to the author’s standing. These same fans overlooked the fact that Lovecraft’s work is intended as exploitation anyhow.
Jeffrey Combs delivers a pitch-perfect performance as the frankly insane Herbert West combining a steely facial expression with an inner intensity, playing the absurdity straight and delivering one of the defining performances of the Eighties and the genre at large. He deservedly takes his place as a genre icon alongside Evil Dead’s Bruce Campbell for the decade that fashion forgot.
Abbott is serviceable at best but then his role plays a secondary role to that of West. Crampton earns her scream queen rating by being both a solid female lead and being game enough to do THAT ‘head giving head’ scene. A special mention should also go out too to the late David Gale for making Carl Hill a decent nemesis to the unhinged West.
The potent combination of excessive gore and nudity, for its time, was enough to mean cuts from the US censor upon its theatrical and retail releases. Today the film is available uncut and even now forty years on Re-animator retains the power to both shock and amuse in equal measure. Who would have thought that such a film would have wowed the jury at the Cannes Film Festival so much for it to be awarded their Special Prize?
Gordon’s film was enough of a financial success to spawn a franchise. A sequel Bride of Re-Animator followed in 1990 and another much later, in 2003, called Beyond Re-Animator. There is talk of a fourth flick that producer Yuzna tentatively pitched as Isle of Re-Animator which would homage H.G. Wells novel The Island of Doctor Moreau. Gordon was afforded the opportunity to film another Lovecraft-inspired picture, the muddled and less successful From Beyond.
Re-Animator is a terrific amount of fun to watch, pitched perfectly by Gordon maintaining an over-the-top tone without losing the viewer in the excess. The film is never about the gore and nudity but much more an exercise in the deadpan and never being afraid to go too far for a laugh or, for that matter, a shock. It is quite an accomplishment and daring too, ripping off Bernard Herrmann’s classic score for Psycho did upset the purists but so what? That is what Gordon’s film embraces, taking conventions and turning them up on their head surprising and delighting viewers in equal measure. Enjoy!
H.P. Lovecraft’s ‘Re-Animator’ – Stuart Gordon’s seminal ‘outrageous, gory, jaw-dropping, genre-busting, exhilarating’ horror – is set for Dual 4K UHD/Blu-ray Limited Edition and Standard Editions on 15 December 2025.
Special Features
New 4k restoration approved by Producer Brian Yuzna
UHD Presented in HDR with Dolby Vision
Dual format 3-disc edition including 1 UHD and 2 Blu-rays with main feature and bonus features on both discs.
Includes the Integral Version in HD
New Audio Commentary by Eddie Falvey
Audio Commentary with Director Stuart Gordon
Audio Commentary with Producer Brian Yuzna and Actors Bruce Abbott, Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, and Robert Sampson
The Cosmic Horror of HP Lovecraft: a video essay by Mike Muncer
Re-Animator at 40: conversation with Actors Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton, and Producer Brian Yuzna
Piece By Piece: Cutting Re-Animator: an interview with Editor Lee Percy
Suzie Sorority and The Good College Boy: an interview with Actor Carolyn Purdy-Gordon
The Horror of it All: The Legacy and Impact of Re-Animator
Barbara Crampton in Conversation
A Guide to Lovecraftian Cinema
Re-Animator Resurrectus
Interview with Director Stuart Gordon and Producer Brian Yuzna
Interview with Writer Dennis Paoli
Interview with Composer Richard Band
Interview with former Fangoria Editor Tony Timpone
Extended Scenes
Deleted Scene
Theatrical Trailer
TV Spots Still
Gallery
Limited Edition Contents
Rigid slipcase with new artwork by Krishna Shenoi
120-page book with new essays by Sean Abley, Becky Darke, Lindsay Hallam, Josh Hurtado, Michelle Kisner, Justin LaLiberty, Phil Nobile Jr and Heather Wixson
Six collectors’ art cards
