Bride of Re-Animator (1991)
Directed by Brian Yuzna
Written by Woody Keith, Rick Fry
Starring Jeffrey Combes, Bruce Abbott, Kathleen Kinmont
Release Date February 22nd, 1991
Box Office $2.5 Million
The original Re-Animator, based on an H.P Lovecraft story, and directed by visionary sci-fi horror director Stuart Gordon, was a genuine shocker. Re-Animator posited a Dr. Frankenstein scenario in which a pair of doctors are working together to solve death. Dr. Herbert West, iconically portrayed by Jeffrey Combes, was a true creep even as his goal was to alleviate death. His arrogance and awkwardness drove him to try and play God with horrific consequences. Many people died others were robbed of their dignity in death and forced to walk the Earth as slobbering, slippery zombies.
Stuart Gordon used Re-Animator to explore his visionary dark humor and darker talent for staging and effects. The practical effects of Re-Animator create a series of horrific scenes of body horror that remain memorable to this day. With Jeffrey Combes leaning into the mad scientist character and Gordon at the top of his talents, Re-Animator earned its status as a cult classic and a must see movie for fans of deeply transgressive horror movies well outside of the mainstream.
Sadly, the cult success of Re-Animator piqued the interest of producers who, desiring to capitalize on popular intellectual property, decided to make a sequel despite not having Gordon's genius to guide it. Instead, the far lesser talented Brian Yuzna stepped in for Gordon and delivered the kind of lazy sequel you only get when the principal partners are merely interested in their return on investment. Despite getting both Jeffrey Combes and the blandly handsome Bruce Abbott to reprise their roles, Bride of Re-Animator is a pale and failing attempt to recapture the horror magic that was Re-Animator.
A mere 8 months after they caused multiple deaths and allowed a man's severed head to commit horrific crimes, Dr. Herbert West (Combes) and Dr. Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott) are laying low in the worst place imaginable. The two are working for Doctors Without Borders in a Central American warzone. Here, Dr. West finds a series of suitable bodies he can experiment on. Freshly dead and relatively intact despite the wounds of war, Dr. West thinks he can bring the dead back to life, if given enough time. Unfortunately for Dr. West, the war is raging out of control and he and Dr. Abbott are forced to flee before they can try any more experiments.
Back in the United States, the doctors make the unexpected decision to return to their old hospital. Somehow the two have managed to not be blamed for what happened at their former medical school and no one seems at all bothered by them being back at their former hospital. Well, no one except a disgraced Police Detective, Detective Chapham (Claude Earl Jones), who claims to have lost his partner to the massacre 8 months earlier. Also the detective's wife is among those that were left behind as zombies.
Find my full length review at Horror.Media
