RE-ANIMATOR
Great, great head
You know how when a movie based on previously published material is released, die-hard fans of the original work (and/or of its author) all start complaining about how it's not just like the book? Re-Animator bears little resemblance to the Lovecraft story upon which it's based, and yet it's the Lovecraft fans that seem to like this movie the most.
Re-Animator opens with a scene in Switzerland where two police officers and a nurse (I think it's a nurse) rush to the aid of Dr. Gruber, who is flailing about and screaming a lot. He's been working with a young American medical student named Herbert West (Jeffrey Coombs), and what Gruber does to himself in a moment makes clear which of the two will go on to star in the rest of the movie. "You killed him!" screams the nurse in horror. "No I did not!" says West, and looks into the camera. "I gave him LIFE!"
If this movie doesn't have you smiling by this point, then it probably isn't your bag. But for fans of sick humor and over-the-top gore, well...you've probably already seen it.
West goes back to America - Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts, specifically. Under the pretense that there was no more that he could learn in Switzerland, he's enrolled in med school and greets his professor (Dr. Hill, wonderfully played by David Gale, no small challenge in the film's second half where his character endures a rather specific sort of handicap) with criticism that borders on mockery. He moves in with Dan, another student (Bruce Abbot), who happens to be sleeping with the Dean's daughter (Barbara Crampton). In the basement, he performs re-animation experiments with a glow-in-the-dark green reagent, setting into motion (of course) the downfall of the medical career of everybody around him.
Coombs is great, smartly choosing to underplay West as an unusually soft-spoken mad scientist, delivering a lot of lines ("Who's going to believe a talking head?") in a much funnier way than most any other actor would have belted them out. Abbot doesn't get to do much, and Crampton's most notable for her cute haircut and the fact that she looks great naked.
The gore is all over the place, and quite revolting, especially in the movie's way, WAY over-the-top climax, which features all sorts of re-animated goons stumbling around, each mangled to a different degree. Sure to send the most hardened horror fan rushing to the can is one scene where one of the leads is strapped down and...if you haven't seen it, I wouldn't dream of spoiling it for you. You'll know it when you see it. It's the one with streaks of your vomit dripping down your TV screen.
The plot occasionally stumbles - West injects a headless body with his reagent for no apparent reason, which sets into motion the disasters of the rest of the movie. The Dean had NO idea that Dan was sleeping with his daughter? Yeah, study date, right. And I've complained before about the notion of severed heads being able to talk despite not being able to push air through their larynxes - maybe it's just time I finally gave that a rest, like I've been asking SF fans to quit whining every time a spaceship goes "WHOOSH!" in space.
Still, it's gross, it's funny, and it's a lot of fun. Halloween isn't a party movie - this is, providing there are no women at your party. (just trust me on this one. The women who have seen it will likely back me up on this. Carla?)
There are two cuts of this movie that I know of. The one I have includes the really disgusting scenes - the attack-intestine, the body part going splat against a wall, much of the climax, the incredibly revolting, infamous "head" scene. The other cut omits these, and includes more plot - if memory serves, one scene where Dr. Hill exercises hypnotic powers over Megan (which explains two scenes later on where Hill further attempts to use those powers), and another where West injects himself with the reagent in hopes of it "vitalizing" him. I liked those scenes, but I think I prefer the gore. What are you gonna remember a year from now - Jeffrey Coombs injecting himself with green goo, or "That's it! More passion!"?
Directed by Stuart Gordon, this movie gave rise to one sequel (and another that's been in development limbo for about seven or eight years now), which disregards the fact that at the end of the "gore" cut of this film, two of the characters that return are killed.
Irrelevant trivia: Kirk Hammet, guitarist for Metallica, owns the "head" prop from this movie, or at least once did. And the movie's darkly funny final shot was ripped off by washed-up sex-comedy auteur-wannabe Blake Edwards in Skin Deep, to an effect that might have been funny if every critic in the world hadn't said "I don't want to give it away specifically, but the biggest laugh involves glow-in-the-dark condoms!" Just don't see Skin Deep. See this.