Beyond Re-Animator

This third Re-Animator movie delivered what any fan of the series would expect. The formerly dead jitterbug about after receiving a dose of reagent from Herbert West. West again has a love stricken assistant. West's assistant is again in a love triangle with West's would-be nemesis. So, why not pop Re-animator or Bride of Re-animator in if there is nothing new? Good question. Here are some reasons

1- The effects in this film are top notch.

2- Jeffrey Combs again shows his acting chops playing Herbert West.

3- There is a new twist to the re-animation process that shows some promise in `clinical trials'.

There are some really convincing effects throughout the film. Makeup and effects are more than window dressing in a film of this nature. Inadequate attention to either would have dropped the value of this film immediately. You believe that these guys have been dead and now no longer are. They are much more believable than JarJar Binks.

Herbert West is over a decade older in this film. Combs takes this maturity and adds it to the character he molded in the previous efforts. It's obvious that he is the same Dr. West yet it is also obvious that time has added to the character. Even more interesting, at the beginning of the film is a flashback where Combs plays the younger West. It's an opportunity to compare the two portrayals almost side by side. The essence of West remains, the speech pattern, the physicality remain. What Combs added to West's character is a veil to the intensity. What was once a roaring fire is now under control. He is no less determined, just a bit more subdued in expressing it.

The addition to the re-animation process, which I will not discuss in particular, adds another moral dimension to the question of the correctness of bringing back the dead. Although this moral dimension is directly addressed in the film, Medical Ethics 101 it is not. The ethical question is covered briefly and in the context of the fate of West's nemesis. As with all Re-animator activity conducted by West time is valuable and little of it is wasted. Events are happening rapidly and under less than ideal circumstances.

The DVD version has an music video on it, which was a surprise. It also has a `making of' short that should have had about another five or six days of work done to it before including it. It does have interviews with the principle actors and with the director. Have your subtitles turned on, the actors, with two exceptions speak Spanish even during the clips from the movie included in the short.

As any good sequel will, this one leaves open the possibility of yet another Re-animator movie. Hopefully the production quality will continue its improvement. Maybe Bruce Abbott and Barbara Crampton can be re-animated for the fourth film.

Beyond re-animator is the final installment of Stuart Gordon's "Re-animator" series that began in 1985 and like most late installments, comes off as unnecessary and a failed attempt to cash in on a popular title. In the fashion of "Jason goes to Hell", "Freddy's dead: The Final Nightmare" and "Halloween: H20", Beyond Re-animator attempts to restart the series by trying to retcon certain plot elements while pretending to be a legitimate sequel. The result, as usual was a colossal mess of inconsistencies, leaving only the most superficial elements from the original two films without the heart of what made those films so beloved in the first place. We find our protagonist Herbert West imprisoned in a federal jail after his former assistant Dan Kain apparently turned him in to the authorities for his illegal experimentation. We never find out why Dan, a prominent character in the original films would do such a thing and Beyond Re-animator brushes off any details as unimportant. We're also provided with no explanation as to how West escaped the cliffhanger conflict at the end of the last film "Bride of Re-animator". Jeffrey Combs reprises his role as the mad scientist, who continues his devilish experiments on whatever subjects he can gain access to within the confines of his small prison cell. However, everything changes for West when Dr. Howard Philips (Jason Barry) takes over as the prison physician. Philips had witnessed the power of West's reagent serum as a child and has since become obsessed with the science of re-animating the dead. Handing West his iconic syringe containing the glowing green reagent, it's only a matter of time before West restarts his old experiments, and the entire prison is thrown into chaos. The film plays out in the typical fashion that we've come to expect from this series. Characters die only to be used as test subjects for West and Philips who bring them back to life as vicious, murderous monsters. The style blends graphic body horror with ridiculous slap stick comedy. While entertaining at times, Beyond Re-animator does little more than copy it's predecessors and fails to further the story of Herbert West in any meaningful way. The absence of Stuart Gordon is obvious as the film feels more like a what if scenario, rather than a genuine attempt to further an existing mythos. The story is convoluted as the majority of scenes serve little more than excuses to get from A to point B. For example, there's an ongoing joke about one of the inmates having a pet rat. We see West experiment on the rat which serves as an all to predictable foreshadowing of the rat being re-animated as one of West's experiments and eventually attacking his former owner. The characters in this film, save for Herbert West, were all one dimensional and failed to establish meaningful identities for themselves. Herbert West is deranged and lacking in social graces as always, making him the sole source of entertainment. By comparison, the scenes without West were uninteresting and took up far to much of the film's run time. It was fun seeing Jeffrey Combs reprise his most famous role one last time. However, the unoriginal plot and hollow performances by the rest of the cast simply couldn't keep up with him and ultimately dragged him down along with them and the rest of this film. Beyond Re-animator attempted to bring new life to the Re-animator series. Unfortunately, this experiment was a failure.

I loved the first Re-Animator movie. "Bride of Re-Animator" was OK. This one is over-the-top, completely twisted, and just plain clean, gory, bloody, guts spattering about, eyeballs crawling around, penis-attacks-rat fun.

This isn't a movie that takes itself seriously, and you shouldn't, either.

Jeffrey Combes is wonderful, as always, as Dr. Herbert West. Dr. West has figured out (or so he thinks) what was missing in his previous "experiments." Needless to say, it doesn't work as planned (hey, it's "just a theory"), and much mayhem ensues. Much. Much more than in the first two movies. Think "Attica" meets "Night of the Living Dead" meets "Freaky Friday." Yes, it's that far off the deep end.

I would recommend this film highly to anyone who enjoys a humorous splatter flick. If you're not a deranged gorehound, you probably won't like this one. Speaking as a longtime deranged gorehound, however, I can safely say that this is one of the finest films ever made in its genre, and certainly worthy of several Academy Awards.

I did mention that I was deranged, right?

Yeah, I did. And if you are, too, see this movie. And don't forget to watch the absolutely classic "Move Your Dead Bones" video that also comes on the DVD. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll like it better than "Cats."

Kudos to Brian Yuzna!

Better than it had to be. I'm not gonna lie - I liked it more than Bride. It's more cohesive. It's zany without the over the top acting like Bride had. I like that after all these years - it stays true to the original. It still has that 80's spirit. This is a treat for fans who needed one more fix of that Re-Animator goodness!

It's been well over a decade since we last saw Herbert West and now he's finally back. It seems his past has finally caught up with him as he is now currently serving a jail sentence for the gory mayhem his re-animated corpses have caused. The arrival of a new young doctor, who wants to help West, results in West being back in business. The best thing about this film is Jeffrey Combs. He slips back into the role of Herbert West effortlessly. The gore effects courtesy of Screaming Mad George are also a highlight. While not as good as the original, it's about even with Bride Of Re-Animator. I hope there'll be further instalments.

Oh and continue watching during the end credits.