Unquiet
Things

I’d somehow never seen Re-Animator until now, which is embarrassing to admit as a horror fan.

Herbert West is a medical student obsessed with reanimating dead tissue using a glowing green serum. He moves in with Dan Cain, another med student, and immediately starts experimenting on Dan’s dead cat. Things go from bad to worse when they try the serum on a human corpse in the morgue. The reanimated corpse kills Megan’s father, Dean Halsey, who then gets reanimated himself. Their professor, Dr. Hill, has been creepily obsessed with Megan Dan’s girlfriend, and tries to steal Herbert’s research. Herbert decapitates him with a shovel and reanimates both the head and body separately. Hill, now a talking severed head with telepathic control over other reanimated corpses, has the zombified Dean Halsey kidnap his own daughter and bring her to the morgue.

I’m not sure what I can say about this that hasn’t been written a thousand times already, so I’m not even going to try. It was a ridiculous romp, and I loved it. Jeffrey Combs (who I already adored! Weyoun!) was perfect as Herbert West, this nebbish, nerdy, abrasive guy who thinks he’s mentally superior to everyone (and probably is) and is extremely driven and crazy with a singular focus. He steals every single scene and stole my heart anew. I have an shameless crush on 1986-Jeffrey Combs.

The practical effects are spectacularly gross, the pacing is relentless, it’s campy and over-the-top and wonderful. Barbara Crampton, whom I also love but have only ever seen in later roles as an already established scream queen, was fabulous. And I loved Dan! His befuddled earnestness as he gets pulled deeper into Herbert’s madness was endearing. I wonder if there’s Herbert West/Dan Cain slash fiction out there. Wait…is that what Bride of Re-Animator is about!? Don’t tell me! I’ll get to that one before the end of the month and report back.

But I also feel strange saying I loved this movie without acknowledging the parts that made me uncomfortable. The cat scene, which I know used a fake cat and is played for absurd laughs, still bothered me. And then there’s the scene in the morgue where Hill’s severed head is placed between Megan’s legs while she’s tied naked to a table. I had to look away, not because of the gore (I can handle gore), but because the idea itself was so disturbing. It’s meant to be outrageous and shocking, probably meant to titillate in that ’80s horror way, but it’s a sexual assault scene.

I’m sure some people are going to think I’m judging a 40-year-old movie through a modern lens, but come on. Being uncomfortable watching something like this isn’t about standards or sensitivity; it’s just being a person with basic empathy. I don’t know how to reconcile loving a film that includes something this explicitly graphic and perverse, in that context. I can appreciate the audacity while also feeling genuinely uncomfortable. Maybe that’s the point? Or maybe I’m overthinking a movie that just wants to spray fake blood everywhere. I loved the film and I loved the experience of watching it. I think it’s immediately one of my all-time favorite horror movies, but I’ll admit, for the aforementioned reasons, it feels a little gross to say that.

But…if I watch it again, I can always skip that scene.

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