Bride of the Re-Animator Review

Well, I’m back to watching horror now that my in-laws are gone, and me and my wife aren’t driving around town or anything along those lines. The dvd said this was “Beyond Re-Animator", but it wasn’t. So the film we are going to be reviewing this morning/afternoon or whenever it is you’re reading this, will be none other than Bride of Re-Animator!

Bride of the Re-Animator came out in 1991 and was written and directed by Brian Yuzna. (Yuzna had help though, from Rick Fry, Woody Keith) However, this is a reworking of an H.P. Lovecraft tale. This film is a direct sequel to Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator and is followed of course by the Sci-Fi original “Beyond Re-Animator”.

Here is a trailer for the early 90’s film Bride of the Re-Animator:



The story revolves around Dr. Herbert West and Dr. Dan Cain who are medics in a Peruvian war. These guys are experimenting on casualties of war, and right when the green serum is once again shown on screen, a melee forces them to move back home.

The setting to the rest of the story is Arkham, Massachusetts (not to be confused with Batman: Arkham Asylum comic book), as one of the guys is a real doctor while the other is in a basement lab continuing his research on reanimation. The film takes about an hour to set up, and is really slow moving. There are some new characters introduced too, and nothing really is interesting to note. Sure, there are some set ups, including some medical gore, but nothing really worth while. It’s really a slow moving movie.

By the time the movie starts getting good, a zombie plot seems to brew, but more of a Frankenstein monster not necessarily a zombie. It’s a combination of the two, without brains being eaten. The movie then goes from slow moving drama to all out horror gore fest. The gore levels are laughable, and are really tame for the first half of the film. We see body parts and things along those lines, but never does the blood flow until an arm is cut off inducing fountain like gore, then in an accident one of Cain’s patients isn’t revived and we see some major blood pour out. The blood is thick and dripping, and it’s a deep red color.

One must note that color in this film is very interesting. The director contrasts red and green with an olive, European Exploitation, coloring. I thought that this film was a European cult film not an American production.

The final act in this film gets all over the board, and really crazy. There is a zombie stand off, a sex filled reanimation of Cain’s fiancée from the first film, and wow, this thing falls off the rails. It really begs to answer some questions after the fact.



Is Bride of Re-Animator Scary: Yes.

The movie gets really scary in the obsession of the two doctors. While one doctor wants to bring life by way of saving it from death, the other doctor wants to bring back to life the dead. It’s crazy the way obsession plays into the duality of the film. The scary notions deal with this obsession to bring back the dead and to be better than God.

Dr. West says a line of dialogue that is chilling. He talks about how he has created life after God has created a loathsome thing in his image. West considers himself above God for recreating that which was believed to be dead. He even brings back Cain’s original girlfriend and this part is sickening.

The second part of the scary parts of this film deals with raising the dead. Not so much the act of raising the dead, but moreover what to do when they are alive. This is a scary thing because the reanimated bodies portray a horror element that resembles zombies. They don’t seem to act as a part of society, but rather they begin to attack and get nightmarish in tone.

Bride of the Re-Animator is an interesting film. I recommend it in the series of the Re-Animator films, however it’s not the best. I liked it, and I think it’s worthwhile. It has some good gore, some pleasant nudity, and an overall obsession that is really nice. However, this is NOT the best film in the world. It is long, it has some pacing problems, but it’s a good film in regards to horror. Horror fans will eat this up, however casual fans will find this film a bit too tedious for constant viewings.



Looking for grindhouse, horror, or sci-fi films? Please check out our amazon astore featuring all things horror. Don't trust astore? Check out amazon.com, surprisingly they have more grindhouse,horror,and rare sci-fi than you may not have thought possible.