Bright, bloody, and full of campy good fun, the most successful of Stuart Gordon’s many cinematic essays at Lovecraft now finds itself brought back to life on UHD and Blu-Ray with a lot of dedication from the folk at Second Sight, and a little dash of luminous green re-agent. When the brilliant but deeply strange medical student Herbert West (future Star Trek favourite Jeffrey Combs) seeks to room with the all-American Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott), Cain has no inkling of the circumstances that will soon find him a willing accessory to a series of increasingly macabre experiments.
The real-life Lovecraft was a rum old bugger, full of poetic pretension and Gothic brooding, not to mention an unhealthy dash of xenophobia. With that in mind, taking one of his least accomplished works – a burlesque of Frankenstein, written in serial format and dashed off for the cash – and adapting it for the fun-loving 80s horror scene that produced such major bits of frippery as Poltergeist, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, and Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn may have seemed an unlikely formula for success. That said, success is exactly what director Stuart Gordon and producer Brian Yuzna found, and subsequently failed to recapture with such efforts as From Beyond, Necronomicon, Castle Freak, Dagon, Bride of Re-Animator, Beyond Re-Animator and “Dreams in the Witch-House”. The ground for such a “desecration” of Lovecraft may have been laid not only by the Necronomic nonsense that fuels The Evil Dead, but also the interdimensional weirdness of Ghostbusters. The secret formula on which the film relies is its perfect pitch; audiences are not burdened with the heavy-handedness that would mar the fun factor of some of Gordon’s later endeavours, but neither are they spoken down to. Like its star turn by Jeffrey Combs, the film is earnest enough to trust, smart enough to respect, and sick enough to love.
So the film remains just as much of a joy as ever – it bears revisiting every couple of years or so, for it is hard to grow tired of Re-Animator – and this Second Sight release in 4K has to be the definitive release as of right now, being housed in a handsome box complete with art cards and a book of essays, along with a host of special features both new and archival, as well as offering both the original theatrical cut and, on a separate disc, the “Integral version”, which both lengthens the film with a number of subplots – ones which Gordon and Yuzna agree were better left out – and restores all gore cut from various different versions.
The first of three commentaries available on this release is a commentary by Eddie Falvey, who can rightly claim to be an expert not just on 80s splatter, but Re-Animator specifically, having authored a book dedicated just to the film that he refers to as a masterpiece. Falvey comes off as a little inexperienced, stumbling over his words/notes on a few occasions, but his respectful and well-informed treatment of the film is a pleasure nonetheless. There is also a rather dry, but very detailed commentary by director Stuart Gordon, while producer Brian Yuzna takes part in a more lively archival commentary with the now-deceased Robert Sampson (Dean Halsey), along with Barbara Crampton (Megan Halsey), Jeffrey Combs (Herbert West) and Bruce Abbott (Dan Cain). These commentaries are complemented by hours and hours of special features, the result of Second Sight providing its usual raft of special features on top of those that have been ported over from their previous, 2016, rerelease. “The Cosmic Horror of H. P. Lovecraft” is a video essay by Mike Muncer which gives an altogether far too brief overview of official Lovecraft adaptations and Lovecraft-inspired cinema, but it’s a shallow account, just touching on Re-Animator, From Beyond, Alien, The Thing, Event Horizon and Richard Stanley’s The Color Out of Space, which are all interesting films and obviously worthy of discussion, but too much is missing here. Whole books have been written on the history of Lovecraft on screen. Much more rewarding is “Re-Animator at 40”, a lengthy sit-down discussion between Yuzna and actors Combs and Crampton. “Piece By Piece ~ Cutting Re-Animator” features editor Lee Percy trying to work out what gives Re-Animator its lasting appeal, something which is a theme across these interviews. Gordon’s wife from 1968 until his 2020 death, Carolyn Purdy, played Dr. Harrod in the film but does not otherwise feature in these extras. She gives some occasionally somewhat sordid anecdotes from throughout her long association with Gordon in “Suzie Sorority and The Good College Boy”. The notion of Re-Animator‘s legacy, unsurprisingly, is examined further in “The Horror of it All: The Legacy and Impact of Re-Animator”, with interviews with younger directors inspired by Re-Animator, including Joe Lynch (Wrong Turn 2: Dead End), Mick Garris (creator of the anthology Masters of Horror) and Mike Mendez (Big Ass Spider!) and others. Next we’re treated to more of Barbara Crampton, this time being interviewed onstage by Alan Jones at FrightFest 2015, in “Barbara Crampton in Conversation”. “A Guide to Lovecraftian Cinema”, hosted by Lovecraft expert Chris Lackey, unsurprisingly covers similar ground to “The Cosmic Horror of H. P. Lovecraft”, but is much longer at nearly an hour and therefore much more in-depth and satisfying. Lackey approaches the material under discussion as a fan, not an academic, meaning he gives frank assessments of the varying quality of the films covered and provides humorous asides at times.
The remaining material was also available on Second Sight’s last release; this includes Re-Animator Resurrectus, a 70-minute retrospective that dates back to a 2007 DVD release, reflected in its image quality and cheesy graphics, but it’s a pleasant inclusion. There are also a set of 2002-vintage interviews: a lengthy sit-down between Stuart Gordon and Brian Yuzna, and short interviews with writer Dennis Paoli; composer Richard Band (who defends his pastiching of Bernard Herrmann’s Psycho); and Fangoria editor Tony Timpone. Beyond these, there are also dozens of extended scenes, one deleted scene, trailers, and a stills gallery.
Now this is, all in all, an incredible set; the only question will be, given Second Sight’s previous release of the film, is this re-re-released Re-Animator an essential purchase to those who already own that release? That entirely depends on whether they’re insistent upon experiencing the film’s literal buckets of gore in ultra-hi-def, or dead keen on the new special features; the Eddie Falvey commentary, “The Cosmic Horror of HP Lovecraft”, “Re-Animator at 40”, “Piece By Piece ~ Cutting Re-Animator”, “Suzie Sorority and The Good College Boy”, and “The Horror of it All” are brand-new, while “Barbara Crampton in Conversation” and “A Guide to Lovecraftian Cinema” are not new per se, but were not included in the previous release, having been ported over from Arrow Video’s 2017 release. All of these are valuable, no doubt, but it would have been nice to see both sequels included this time around, lesser though they may be, to provide more of an incentive for replacing the older set. Also, it’s a minor quibble, but a fun little feature where Richard Band noodled around on a synthesiser is missing from the earlier release. Still, it’s a lavish package altogether, and obviously a great film.