DVD Review: HP Lovecraft's Re-animator (1985)

While trawling through the horror section in the video store, to my complete surprise, I found H P Lovecraft’s Re-animator on DVD. I thought it existed only on VHS and found only in antique shops run by crazy people who eat cockroaches and feed ducks to bananas.

So, I found it. This movie is important to me as much as the Evil Dead trilogy because they were my introduction to the horror genre. There is so much literature out there that has Lovecraftian aspects to it, and for good reason. It is also the reason why I refuse to read Lovecraft as hard as it is for a horror writer. I consider it the final frontier to read when I’m retired in forty plus years.

Jeffrey Combs (Herbert West) has played many a villain and despite his misgivings as an actor, seems to constantly fit the role of crazy bad guy. The difference with Re-animator, is that he is the crazy purposefully good guy with an original premise to save the world from death itself. The movie has some excellent quotes although I understand for reasons of copyright, I cannot put them here.

I expect most people reading this article know about West’s frolics with his glow in the dark soup that re-animates dead tissue so I won’t drivel, however, I do want to afford some concentration to the movie’s character.

Most stories have at its core, a character that requires some sort of development, understanding, or wisdom that they must acquire. It’s guaranteed that the central character will evolve through the movie to its conclusion. One of the reasons I like Re-animator, specifically Herbert West, is that he doesn’t evolve. He’s got a one-track mind from the beginning of the movie to the end, and with sequel after sequel, this formula seems to work.

The movie commences with West having a formula to re-animate the dead but it’s ineffective. After some development, he can re-animate dead tissue but they’re too zombie-like. After some initial ‘live studies’, including his neurology professor Dr Carl Hill, he finds that one of his subjects shows intelligence rather than primal or primitive reaction, thus fuelling his desire to continue his studies. It is clear from the script that West can never find that ultimate cure, even if they were brought back as 100% human. He’d want to keep pushing the boundaries until he realises that there are no boundaries.

The story takes the character one step further by giving him a lack of morality and ethics in his work. Human beings, like cats and mice, are ‘subjects’. He has no resentment or conflict for what he has done (even when he has murdered them), as West sees their death as an opportunity; an opportunity to breathe life back into them. To offset this disregard for human life, we become accustomed to Dan Cain who soon becomes West’s conscience, trying to direct and teach him the value of human life, but Cain is soon drawn into West’s world in a series of hilarious events he can’t possibly control.

Re-animator, as old as it is today, is classic horror reserved in the annals of time as having one of my favourite characters in horror literature. It would be dull to say West’s character did evolve and develop as there are so many reasons for understanding his single-mindedness and will to play at being God, to continue to play at being God, and for trying to break the rules that he has created for himself. This train of thought is never bumped off the rail, despite a series of unfortunate events and cataclysmic accidents including the reanimation of his dead professor who is hell-bent on squashing West, despite being dead and decapitated.

If you haven’t watched this movie, get away from the screen and hire it out!