Re-Animator II, la fiancée de Re-Animator

Herbert West and his reluctant sidekick, Dr. Cain, return for another fun, gory round of bringing back the dead in bits and pieces. This time, West cons Cain into an attempt to rebuild his late girlfriend, using her preserved brain and body parts scrounged from the local hospital. From here on in, this film is like a contemporary "Bride of Frankenstien", except the special effects (I love the stop-motion "eye" spider!) are terrific and there's enough gore to please fans. A underrated sequel. See it~

"Re -Animator" extremely well received (quite rightly so) at the time of issue,still stands as a classic of the horror and fantasy genre.Who cared if it was not faithful to Lovecraft?Were the sixties Corman's movies that much faithful to Edgar Allan Poe?Crazy situations,witty lines,and above all an extraordinary skilled actor,Jeffrey -West,Herbert West-Combs who managed to be at once sinister and hilarious.

The sequel is not so exciting;like in most of the follow-ups ,the surprising effect has disappeared.Besides ,the script is too derivative ,borrowing from "the bride of Frankenstein" (James Whale,1935) and from "night of the living dead" (Romero,1968).

Only Jeffrey Combs remains.They put the weight on him and he carries it honorably.During the cast and credits,we can hear the same music ,which is absolute plagiarism:Hermann's "Psycho".

I did not start watching this with the highest of expectations. I am sure that many of you did not/will not as well. There were two main reasons for me:

1. Its a sequel

Generally, sequels are a bad re-hash of the first, or some misguided attempt to bring the story and characters to a new setting. This movie is neither, instead we get a (semi) natural continuation of the first film, which attempts to slip in more of the original Lovecraft Novella, which ultimately, neither film lives up to. Sure, characters that had little to no hope for life return with out a bat of the camera's eye, but this is a horror-comedy people, not The Godfather: Part II type of sequel, and I'm willing to ignore this to an extent. it never got on my nerves, anyway. Escapes the "horror movie sequel trap" quite well.

2. Bad Reviews

For some reason, this has terrible reviews most places, while the first film is praised and given **** and ***** star ratings, this puppy is tossed into the "worth a rental for genre fans" bin, with nothing above a ** rating in any professional reviewers opinion. This is really a shame, although I do admit, if you are not a fan of the first film you probably may as well skip this one. I also strongly recommend that those of you who have not seen Re-Animator backtrack and watch it first, as it definitely would (or maybe I should say "should") heighten your enjoyment level of this film.

Bride of Re-Animator is an excellent chunk of horror-comedy, which gets over looked when standing next to its beefy pappy. Personally, I found that elements of the film surpassed the first, atmosphere and gore f/x being the most clear ones. I really have to hand it to the f/x design team, because this is currently one of my favorite horror films as far as "creatures". The many experiments highlight the film when ever they appear, and the Bride herself is an excellent piece of gore design.

As far as the atmosphere goes, it is surely darker then its predecessor in this respect. Perhaps only the climax of the film truly shows the best aspects, as for the most part it reflects a similar attitude to Re-Animator, if slightly watered down. However, at the end we are treated to multi-colored lighting, fantastic zombies, smoke and some well used gauze, used to invoke the dress of the Bride in Bride of Frankenstein. Not to mention the earlier stated creature effects.

At any rate, this is a very worthy follow-up to a horror classic. Perhaps the script is not as strong, the quotable lines fewer and farer between and supporting characters more forgettable. But admit at least, nay-sayers, that if nothing else you loved it when Dr. West yelled "My God! They're using tools!"

7/10

I have loved the original "Re-Animator" since I first saw it as a demented little boy way back in 1986. So naturally, I was quite excited when I got the chance to see the sequel when it premiered on Cinemax in 90 or 91. Although I was satisfied with "Bride of Re-Animator" when I initially viewed, I some how managed to avoid seeing it again for the next decade. I am not quite sure why that is, especially considering I have been enjoying the original on dvd for quite some time now. Looking back I think it's because I had the realization that, as I have grown older and my tastes have matured, things that were "great" when I was kid are often terrible these days, rendering films that were merely "oky" even worse. In other words, I was afraid of watching "Bride" and just hating, thereby tarnishing the legacy created by the still fabulous original. To get to the point, I recently decided to take a chance and I broke down and bought "Bride" on dvd. Going into it with my expectations totally lowered (since I couldn't remember much from watching it 10 years prior), I was pleasantly surprised by this worthy sequel to one of my all time favorite horror flicks. Sure, "Bride" still somewhat pales by comparison, but it would be safe to say that it compares to the original the same way that the competent "Halloween 2" stands up to it's classic predecessor. In other words, this isn't a great flick, but much of the magic that made the original work is still here, and the film has a few surprises of it's own. I won't go into the plot because everybody else on here has already explained it, and besides, I find the plot to be one of the areas where "Bride" is most lacking. I will instead try to concentrate on the things I like about this film, namely, some snappy (and extremely DRY) one-liners, hilariously over-the-top gore effects and another great turn by Jeffrey Combs as the titular "re-animator". "Bride" relies on the mix of outrageous horror and dark comedy that defined the original, this time leaning just a little more towards the comedy side without becoming a parody of the first one. With stronger direction and more a more fleshed-out screenplay, I believe this one could have had the potential to be as good as the original-but who wants to see classic overshadowed? "Bride of Re-Animator" stands well on it's own and as a nice afterthought to the original it should please most fans. I also highly recommend the feature-loaded dvd release, and although some would argue this film gets a slightly grander dvd treatment than it deserves, who can really complain about a plethora of special features?

Dr. West and Dr. Cain strike back again! This film is very similar to Frank "Basket Case" Henenlotter´s "Frankenhooker", but obviously shot with a higher budget and a more elaborated story. It never reached the status from its predecessor, the unique "Re-Animator" directed by Stuart Gordon, but it´s worth to be watched in any case! Especially Dr. West´s weird creatures like four spider-looking combined fingers, a strange symbiosis between arm and foot, and a dog whose leg was replaced by a human arm make "Bride of Re-Animator" being a bizarre pleasure! At the end Dr. Hill and some creepy zombie maniacs storm the laboratory and destroy the property. Dr. West seems to be dead, but recently I read on IMDb about the production of "Beyond Re-Animator" - starring Bruce Abott and Jeffrey Combs...