Meadhall of the Comitatus

I’m slowly making my way through all those movies that I always meant to review but never did, and after seeing The Man basically wasted in Abominable, I figured there might not be a better time to hit what may be the greatest horror-comedy of the ‘80s.  I’ll be impressed if I ever find something to compete with this puppy, but I suppose that’s always a possibility.  Probably equal to the possibility that I will wake up one day and appreciate Will Ferrell as the finest actor of his generation.

This is in the opening scene of the movie, letting you know just what you're in for throughout the rest. I LOVE this movie.

Premise: 4/5

Do you like your movies warped with an extra helping of demented?  Good, then this’ll be right up your alley.  See, it’s loosely based on H. P. Lovecraft’s story “Herbert West: Re-Animator,” which is weird enough to begin with, but then the movie builds on that foundation and goes well past the boundaries of good taste and into outright horrible awesomeness.

Herbert West is a genius who’s obsessed with conquering death itself.  He’s got a glowy green reagent that he’s been trying to refine.  This thingy he injects into various and sundry test subjects is pretty good at bringing apparently dead animals back to life, but it’s a hideous kind of shrieking brainless life that usually leads the testees (lol testes) into going ballistic and attacking whatever happens to be around when they re-animate.  But hey, any progress is good progress, yeah?  Eventually, through a blackly hilarious chain of events, West has got nothing to lose and more than enough fresh human and (relatively) undamaged bodies to try out his goo on and then . . . well, and then things start getting icky.

Not the zombie deathcat kind of icky either, even though it is awesome. I LOVE this movie.

I’m going to forego my usual play-by-play on the movie because, quite frankly, everyone should see this movie.  It’s funny, gross, twisted and relentless in upping the ante on the next shock or comic moment.  While I wouldn’t call the movie unpredictable, I’d definitely consider it unexpected—it routinely pushes buttons that even the craziest filmmakers might not want to hit with a ten-foot pole.  And this is part of Re-Animator’s greatness.  You HAVE to see it, you’ll be grossed out but still find yourself unable to hold back your uneasy and likely insane laughter at the same time.

And can you name me one other movie that has a John Kerry-looking dude being decapitated with a shovel? I love this movie.

Cast: 5/5

You know, there’s quite a few people in this movie, but the only one who really matters is Jeffrey Combs.  As Herbert West, he’s got this amazing magnetism that only increases the less “human” he acts.  He’s cold, eminently scientific, and more than a little unhinged.  He plays West as this obsessive genius with so much anti-charisma that it somehow spins back around to being serious charisma once again.  He handles the role without any winks or self-referential smirks, even with his most fucked-up and funny lines.  He is, simply put, the man, and reason enough to see this movie on his own.

You can't tell me that dude doesn't mean business . . . WITH A BONESAW.

But since I mentioned it, I have to give serious props to everyone in the cast here.  The movie is designed to be so over-the-top you know you’re not supposed to take it seriously.  This is where a lot of horror-comedies would lose their edge, since when a movie’s designed that way the cast usually like to be in on the joke, chewing on and giggling to themselves at their lines and scenes.  Kudos to everyone in Re-Animator for playing something like this completely straight.  Its sick hilarity is only amplified by everyone deadpanning like champs.  Don’t worry viewers, your fourth wall is intact and well—unless freakin’ zombies bust through it and try to mess your day all up.

I can also talk about David Gale, who plays Herbert West’s arch-nemesis Dr. Hill.  He’s like a rather perverted and evil Obi Wan Kenobi, Jedi Mind Trick-ing almost everyone in the film into doing something that really doesn’t turn out well for them at one point or another.  He’s got a nice gravitas to him with just enough hints of malice to make you a little scared of him even when he’s just raising a toast.  Of course, that’s before he ends up dead, after that—well, you really ought to just see for yourself.  Seriously.

Holy hell! Imagine waking up naked strapped to a morgue table and THAT is the first thing you see. I pretty much love this movie.

Technical: 3.5/5

Sweet bloody Jesus this is one gory movie!  Sweet, sweet gore and ick, how I’ve missed you!  There’s some nasty (yet funny) violence that’s made this movie a gore classic for a reason.  Apparently, the special effects guys had to use twenty-five gallons of fake blood on this movie, which sounds like quite a lot anyhow, but you then compare that to the fact that most of the other  horror movies the effects team worked on took only two gallons of fake blood, and the grody-ass picture becomes even clearer.  Self-animating intestine attacks?  Check.  Decapitation via shovel?  Also check.  Bodies rent limb from limb?  Yep, another check.  I can’t help but love how depraved this movie gets on its gore, and the running gag of throwing things up against walls so they splatter never EVER gets old.

Other than the gore, though, there’s very little that makes me go “wow!” in the tech department.  It’s certainly no Suspiria, for example—but the beauty is that I don’t even care.  The movie’s funny enough and disturbed enough without any extra frills getting in the way and distracting me.  In fact, it wasn’t even until I was figuring out how to rate this category that I realized there weren’t any (non-gore) scenes or shots that stood (non-severed) heads above the rest.  And I am absolutely fine with that.  This is not (thank Great Cthulhu) The Hunger.

Oh, you want a taste, do you? Well HERE. Lobotomized zombie crushing the severed head of another zombie, complete with blood exploding out the eye sockets and so forth. I LOVE this movie.

Popcorn Factor: 5/5

Any real horror fan owes it to themself to see this movie.  It’s not for the squeamish and certainly not for the Puritanical—it’s grisly, gory, fun with a wicked sense of humor and plenty of bite as well.  I really love this movie (I suppose the more astute amongst you may have picked up on that by now), and the final proof I need of this fact is that I have watched Re-Animator four to five times in the last three or so weeks because I feel compelled to show this to pretty much everyone and anyone.  Come for the Combs, stay for the gore, and be utterly at a loss for words during the last quarter of the movie.  It’s hilarious and horrific in equal measure, and quite possibly the best movie adaptation (though, of course, not the most accurate) of Lovecraft ever.  I can not recommend this highly enough.  Just see if I’m wrong!

This movie also illustrates that the best course of action is to ask: What, indeed, WOULD Conan do? Hence, I love it.