Absolutely SPLATTER-RIFIC!
Can you even call yourself a horror fan if you haven’t seen Re-Animator? If you were going to introduce someone to horror cinema for the first time and you had to pick ten films for them to watch, this would have to be on that list. It’s a pinnacle of 1980s horror, without delving into the slashers that most people associate with the era. Return of the Living Dead is my favorite 80s horror flick, but Re-Animator may very well be number two.
It has a pretty straight forward plot: a medical student is attempting to reanimate the dead using a serum of his own creation. Naturally, the serum works…kind of. When folks return from the dead, they’re not exactly themselves. That’s right, you have violent, mumbling zombies on your hands!
The acting is great, especially from Jeffrey Combs, playing Herbert West, the mad medical student. But let’s be honest, the best thing about Re-Animator is the gore! If any film displays the greatness of pre-CGI gore effects, it’s this movie. The special effects crew, run by John Carl Buechler, made this movie a classic. From the grinding saw going through a guys chest, to bursting eyeballs, to intestines exploding from a guy’s abdomen…it’s all brilliant. But probably the best is the head of Dr. Hill (David Gale) sitting there in the pan atop the surgical table, bleeding and barking orders at his own decapitated corpse. Classic!