Re-Animator - Fase Terminal

Any movie that includes a character named after the Great Lovecraft himself is bound to attract the attention of quite a few enthusiasts, even though in this case said character is dull and mostly thinly constructed, yet this is a sequel to the epic of Doctor West and his uncanny obsession, as such it was bound to create a certain momentum.

Which it does, up to a certain time. The opening scene is quite unexpected if not remarkably brilliant and although the movie seems to lag off during its middle sections, encompassing a completely unnecessary and mostly painful romance, it gains strength as it marches towards a complete onslaught of mangled bodies re-animated, a sinister warden now possessed with the spirit of a nasty rodent, an exploding junkie and a forest of not quite-dead bodies merrily twitching away.

Obviously, there is no plot worth mentioning, and only West's zeal to proceed through the insanity and protect his work manages to cause some impact in terms of psychologically rendering a character above a simple stereotype.

As it has already been mentioned, in this movie insanity reigns supreme, until it seems clear the director was more interesting to enjoying the pandemonium than anything else.

***Spoiler***

A perfect example of this is the rat-fighting-penis scene, perhaps one of the most hilarious and strangely concocted images to have surfaced the big screen ***Spoiler****

Also, a few scenes are reminiscent of some horror cult icons, which further stress that Beyond Re-Animator, like the whole series, is a product to and for the genre that fostered it, without trying to reward any viewer not in sync with the dictates of horror from the gory kind.

***Spoiler***

I found it most satisfying that West makes it through it all simply to walk away at the end of the movie, clearly all other characters were somewhat perfunctory and it would seem too much anti-climax to dispatch the good doctor or not grant him his liberty ***Spoiler***

Overall, a very amusing piece of horror that is not the work of a genius but is far from being completely without worth.

After thirteen years in a prison ruled by a very mean director, Dr. Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) is invited to be the assistant of the new-comer Dr. Howard Phillips (Jason Barry), a brilliant resident, in the penitentiary infirmary. After being introduced to each other, Dr. Phillips discloses that the last experiment of Dr. West killed his sister thirteen years ago, when he was a boy, and he became fascinated with the possibility of bringing dead people back to life. The journalist Laura Olney (Elsa Pataky), who is covering a matter for her newspaper in the prison, has an affair with Dr. Phillips, and they fall in love for each other. However, the experience of Dr. West looses control and the place becomes a branch of hell. "Beyond Re-Animator" was a great surprise for me. I did not expect anything interesting in this sequel, but I decided to risk, based on the names of Brian Yuzna and Jeffrey Combs. When I saw twice the microphone mistakenly in the scene in the beginning of the movie, when Dr. West is having a conversation with Sergeant Moncho (Lolo Herrero) in his cell, I thought that I was going to lose my time watching this film. However, "Beyond Re-Animator" is an excellent and very funny trash-movie, with a great potential of cult-movie. The story is very bloody and has lots of black humor and gore, recalling the style of Peter Jackson's "Braindead". This movie is a worthwhile sequel of the cult "Re-Animator" and "Bride of Re-Animator". Along the credits, there is another very funny scene. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Re-Animator – Fase Terminal" ("Re-Animator – Terminal Phase")

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.

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!

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.