The Bride of Re-Animator

Toronto International Film Festival Program Book
1990

The Bride of Re-Animator
Brian Yuzna
USA, 1989 100 minutes
Colour/35mm
Production Company: Wildstreet Pictures
Executive Producers: Paul White, Keith Walley, Hidetaka Konno
Producer: Brian Yuzna
Screenplay: Woody Keith and Rick Fry, based on H.P. Lovecraft’s ‘‘Herbert West—Re-Animator’’ Cinematography: Rick Fichter
Editor: Peter Teschner
Art Director: Philip Duffin
Music: Richard Band
Principal Cast: Bruce Abbot, Jeffrey Combs, Claude Earl Jones, Fabiana Udenio, David Gale

In 1985, Re-Animator turned the world of horror world on its ear. It was an intelligent, elegantly crafted horror film, which wasn’t afraid to splatter a little blood. It came at a time when American horror had largely failed to renew its standard texts, most notably the Frankenstein story. It should have been obvious that Mary Shelley’s masterpiece, with its underlying message of aging and death as failure, would be especially salient in the age-obsessed eighties. But it required a small, independent production, working with the deliciously gothic writings of H.P. Lovecraft, to bring about that re-definition. Now the same team, but with producer Brian Yuzna at the helm, have returned to finish the story. Sequels are often risky business, but this one goes for the jugular and sprays. Yuzna borrows heavily from Bride of Frankenstein for mood and narrative, but distills these elements into a special-effects extravaganza which, again, is not shy about spraying the red stuff around. It seems that after the massacre in the hospital morgue, which ended Re-Animator, West and Cain perfect their craft (that is, re-animating dead tissue) in the Peruvian jungles. But they have came home changed: West is now obsessed with the construction of alternative life forms; Cain wants to re-create Elizabeth (his deceased girlfriend) from her surviving heart. It is this second project that takes priority. While a detective investigating the original massacre snoops around, a new love enters Cain’s life, and the surviving head of Dr. Hill terrorizes the boys with his thought-controlled zombies. The action never stops. The Bride of Re-Animator hurtles to its climax with Elizabeth’s epiphanous re-birth and the ultimate battle for the re-animation secret, without pause for breath. —Noah Cowan