Re-Animator Review (1985)

Strap in, gorehounds, because Re-Animator is a splatter-soaked circus of insanity that kicks down the morgue doors, pumps glowing green serum straight into your veins, and dares your brain not to explode. Stuart Gordon’s 1985 Lovecraft-inspired Re-Animator is the kind of movie you stumble into at 3 AM, and by sunrise, you’re re-animated!

The mad doctor of this bloodbath is Herbert West, played with wide-eyed, twitching brilliance by Jeffrey Combs. West is the kind of character that makes Frankenstein look like a cautious hobbyist. He’s obsessed, reckless, and unholy in his pursuit to bring the dead back to life, and when his experiments succeed, it’s less “miracle of science” and more “fountain of carnage.”

This movie doesn’t just splash blood on the walls; it paints murals in arterial spray. Corpses twitch, thrash, and scream in grotesque afterlife spasms. Heads roll (literally), limbs fly, and the morgue becomes a slaughterhouse where no organ is safe. It’s wet, it’s wild, and it’s un-apologetically over the top.

But here’s the thing, underneath the geysers of crimson and the black comedy, the film has a manic energy that makes it unforgettable. The pacing never lets up. The tone dances on the razor’s edge between hilariously absurd and disturbing. One moment you laugh at the sheer audacity of it, and the next you’re squirming as the film crosses boundaries you didn’t think 80’s horror would dare touch.

And then there’s THAT scene, you know the one. The “head giving head” moment that seared itself into the annals of Horror history like a brand on raw flesh. Disturbing, absolutely. It’s kind of a test of how far you’re willing to go for your Horror thrills. Some consider it a Rape scene and while I’m not a fan of those kinds of scenes, I never really felt it was that deep – twisted, sure, but not rape.

Jeffrey Combs is the heartbeat of the movie, delivering one of Horror’s greatest mad scientist performances. His Herbert West is cold, clinical, and brilliant, a man possessed not by demons, but by pure obsession. Pair that with Gordon’s frantic direction and Richard Band’s shrieking, Psycho-inspired score, and you’ve got a cinematic monster that won’t ever die.

At the end of the bloodstained ride, Re-Animator is chaos bottled, shaken, and uncorked all over the morgue floor. It’s funny, it’s revolting, it’s brilliant, and it’s downright deranged. This isn’t a movie for the squeamish, it’s a baptism in blood, a delirious celebration of Horror excess, and one of the crown jewels of 80’s splatter.

So, grab your serum, fiends, and inject yourself with this madness. If you can make it past this one, The Bride of The Re-animator awaits you on the other side, as well as Beyond Re-animator!