“Herbert West Has A Very Good Head On His Shoulders... And Another One In A Dish On His Desk.” You just never know when you’re going to need a spare, right? Join your faithful Grue Crew - Crystal Cleveland, Bill Mulligan, Chad Hunt, and Jeff Mohr - on another trip to the Land of Lovecraft. The last episode was a trip to Dunwich with Lucio Fulci, but this time, they’re headed to Miskatonic University for Re-Animator (1985), Stuart Gordon’s whacked-out take on Lovecraft.
Decades of Horror 1980s
Episode 146 – Re-Animator (1985)
After an odd new medical student arrives on campus, a dedicated local and his girlfriend become involved in bizarre experiments centering around the re-animation of dead tissue.
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Crystal picked Re-Animator (1985) as the film for this episode because, “it’s awesome,” and is one of her favorite films of all time. She also admits to a big fan-crush on Jeffrey Combs and thinks the ever-youthful Barbara Crampton must be bathing in the blood of children. According to Chad, who saw Re-Animator in a theater, Combs was made for the role of Herbert West. Bill identifies Mac Ahlberg as the film’s cinematographer and as a force in creating the look of horror movies of the 1980s. Even Jeff loves this film, especially Barbara Crampton, and he thinks Combs’ portrayal of Herbert West was more over the top than Colin Clive’s portrayal of Dr. Frankenstein. All-in-all, the 1980s Grue-Crew thinks Re-Animator is a film worthy of inclusion in the collection of every horror fan.
Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror 1980s is part of the new Decades of Horror 3-week rotation with The Classic Era and the 1970s. In three weeks, the Grue-Crew’s next film will be John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982).
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