‘Re-Animator’ 4K UHD Review: Breathing New Life Into A Beloved Horror Classic
Though he eventually went on to enjoy a 20+ year career as a filmmaker, across which he would direct 13 more films and be credited as a writer on 10 of them, his first film, Re-Animator, will always be Stuart Gordon’s defining work.
In the 40 years since its theatrical release, Gordon’s first foray away from the Chicago-based Organic Theater Company and into the world of Hollywood filmmaking has enjoyed a regular popularity, with the adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s original Herbet West – Reanimator story being among the most recommended to newer horror fans looking to get into the genre.
Yet, despite its fan-favorite status, Gordon’s Re-Animator is currently hard to come by, with Amazon Prime currently being the only place to find it for streaming and its 2018 Blu-ray release by Arrow Video being completely out of print (though it can be found for a decent price on eBay and Amazon).
Thankfully, Herbert West has been saved from obscurity by Ignite Films, who have not only given the horror classic a 4K restoration, but also given said restoration a physical release.
Featuring new cover art, menu graphics, and of course 4K-UHD and Blu-ray versions of the horror film’s unrated cut, perhaps the most exciting part about Ignite Films’ new release is its absolute bevy of bonus features.
These range from nearly three hours of new content:
- New 40th anniversary 4K UHD trailer (2 mins)
- Re-Animator at 40: A Conversation with Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, and Brian Yuzna (44 mins)
- Piece By Piece: Cutting Re-Animator – A New Interview with Editor Lee Percy (15 mins)
- The Horror of It All: The Legacy and Impact of Re-Animator (12 mins)
- I Give Life: A Look Back at Re-Animator: The Musical (27 mins)
- Suzie Sorority and the Good College Boy: An Interview with Carolyn Purdy-Gordon (14 mins)
- Re-Animating a Horror Classic: The 4K Restoration of Re-Animator (2 mins)
- The Organic Theater Company of Chicago: A 1977 documentary featuring Stuart Gordon (28 min)
As well as all six hours of the ‘Legacy Bonus Features’ originally produced for the Arrow release, such as the film’s isolated music score, three sets of audio commentary, interviews with its cast and crew, and Arrow’s version of the Re-Animator Integral Cut (which restores a number of scenes and plot lines that were cut from the standard R-rated cut):
- Integral Version
- Isolated Score
- Audio commentary with director Stuart Gordon and actors Graham Skipper and Jesse Merlin of Re-Animator: The Musical
- Audio commentary with Stuart Gordon
- Audio commentary with producer Brian Yuzna, actors Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Bruce Abbott, and Robert Sampson
- Re-Animator: Resurrectus – Feature-length documentary on the making of the film featuring extensive interviews with cast and crew
- Interviews with director Stuart Gordon and producer Brian Yuzna, writer Dennis Paoli, composer Richard Band and former Fangoria editor Tony Timpone
- Music discussion with composer Richard Band
- The Catastrophe of Success: Stuart Gordon and The Organic Theater – Director Stuart Gordon discusses his early theater roots and his continued commitment to the stage
- Theater of Blood – Re-Animator: The Musical lyricist Mark Nutter on adapting the cult classic for musical theater
- Extended scenes
- Deleted scene
- Trailer & TV Spots
- Still Gallery
- Barbara Crampton In Conversation: The Re-Animator star sits down with journalist Alan Jones for this career-spanning 2015 interview
- A Guide to Lovecraft Cinema: Chris Lackey, host of the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast, provides a comprehensive look at the many cinematic incarnations of Lovecraft’s work.
- Doug Bradley’s Spinechillers: Herbert West, Re-Animator actor Jeffrey Combs reads H.P. Lovecraft’s original classic story
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The highlight of these features is the Re-Animator: Resurrectus documentary, which reveals a ton of interesting facts about the seminal horror film’s production, including:
- Stuart Gordon originally tried to adapt Re-Animator as a six-episode TV series for PBS.
- The main actors rehearsed the film with Stuart Gordon in his apartment for a week. Likely to get a better feel for the film, help develop chemistry amongst the actors, and because of Gordon’s theater background.
- They visited a real morgue to better understand the setting of the film.
- Richard Band, the composer of Re-Animator’s score, meant the opening title sequence as an homage to Psycho and not a ripoff.
- The film had a $1 million budget in 1985.
- Stuart Gordon went to great lengths to stay faithful to the H.P. Lovecraft source material and have realistic gore. Showed pictures of real dead bodies with similar wounds featured in the film to the cast and crew.
- In a deleted scene, Dr. Hill (David Gale) had hypnotic powers. This would explain how he could communicate with all the corpses in the film’s finale.
- Details on how they accomplished all of the film’s practical effects on such a small budget.
- They had to figure out how to film around the genitalia of all the naked bodies to avoid a harsher rating.
- Stuart Gordon and producer Brian Yuzna decided to release the film unrated to avoid cuts by the MPAA. This also resulted in limited marketing for the film such as newspaper ads being text only and radio spots being composed of nearly nothing but bloodcurdling screams.
In terms of the 4K restoration itself, Re-Animator looks absolutely incredible, with the meticulous process of cleaning each frame of the film having resulted in Herbert West’s horror experiments being presented with super crisp visuals and gut-wrenching sound.
If you don’t already own the film, then the Ignite Films 4K release is the way to go, especially now that the Arrow release is out of print. And luckily, the Blu-ray release was also based on the 4K restoration, so even though it might not offer the elevated resolution of a UHD, it’s still fairly solid in comparison.
That said, it’s hard to say if it’s worth double dipping for. If you already own the Arrow release, then it feels like you can wait to snag Ignite Films’ version on sale.
As for film itself, much like John Carpenter’s The Thing, Re-Animator holds up visually because of its practical effects.
The gore in the film is gnarly and there’s still a surprising amount of nudity regardless of whether they avoided full frontal or not – and while said blood and guts may scare some off, those who can endure will find that the film has only gotten funnier with age.
Both Herbert West and Dr. Hill rarely blink, and as doctors specializing in death they both seem to be having a competition of who has the bigger stick up their ass. As strange as that may sound, that’s meant as a compliment because their back-and-forth dialogue is so entertaining. There’s also the cat sequence, which is an all-timer.
Further, the film’s writing and acting are both remain strong, with each cast member perfectly embodying their respective character – Barbara Crampton’s Meg Halsey loves getting naked but still presents herself as smart and level-headed, Bruce Abbott’s plays Dan Cain as the resistant straight man to the situation, and Robert Sampson truly captures the unnatural terror of Dean Halsey’s attempt to defy death.
All in all, Ignite Films’has truly breathed new life into Re-Animator with their 4K restoration.
Fans interested in getting their own Blu-ray or 4K copy of the horror classic can head over to Ignite Films’ official website and pick it up – in a variety of different editions – today.
NEXT: ‘Dark City’, The Nearly Forgotten ’90s Cult Classic From ‘The Crow’ Director, Gets A 4K UHD Release
Re-Animator (1985), Ignite Films
PROS
- Re-Animator has never looked or sounded better
- Nearly 9 hours of bonus features total; 3 of which are new and exclusive to this release
CONS
- $50 is steep for the standard edition 4K disc, especially if you own the Arrow release of the film
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