Displaying items by tag: Brian Yuzna

BEYOND RE-ANIMATOR

Spain, 2003, 96 minutes, Colour.

Jeffrey Combs, Jason Barry, Elsa Pataki, Angel  Plana, Lola Herrero, Simon Andreu.

Directed by Brian Yuzna.

A brief synopsis from the IMDb: After 13 years in prison, the mad scientist from Re-Animator (1985) gets a new chance to experiment with the arrival of a young prison doctor, who secretly hopes to learn to reanimate dead people. Good intentions turn to horror.

Dr Herbert West, played by Jeffrey Combs, was introduced in Re-Animator in 1985, the film being a successful blend of science-fiction and horror. This led to a sequel in 1989, again with Dr Herbert West, Bride of Re-Animator, not only playing on the initial film as a variation on the Dr Frankenstein theme but also the themes of Bride of Frankenstein. The sequel was directed by Brian Yuzna (who also directed the bizarre science fiction social critique, Society).

Brian Yuzna returns to direct this film with his original star but filmed in Spain with a Spanish cast.

Dr West has been in prison for 13 years – audiences remembering his experimentation with reanimating, creating zombie characters, and consequent horror mayhem.

This film has a prologue with two little boys and their older sister, a zombie attack, her death, the little boy aware of Dr West and growing up to become a doctor himself, get himself appointed to the prison where Dr West is serving his sentence, wanting to team with him and continue the experiments.

And, this is what happens. As with the previous films, there is an opening with someone brutally dying, this time in prison, and the experimenting reanimation – with some dire results in the brutality of the revived prisoner and his aggression. In the meantime, there is the sinister character of the warden, imperious, with a cane, dominating the doctors and the prisoners, and especially towards an eager young journalist, played by Elsa Pataki (some years before she met Chris Hemsworth and married him!). She is attracted to the new young doctor but also trying to infiltrate herself, discover information for her work, supplying information to the warden.

And, the development of the serums for reanimation and some of the prisoners injecting themselves with horror results.

When the journalist is killed, after a relationship with the young doctor (more explicit in 2003 than in the 1980s), he is desperate for her reanimation, collaborating with Dr West. Again, some dire results, for her, deaths, reanimations, changes of moods. And the same, with the warden.

There is a great deal of attention given to the huge prison, the yard, the number of prisoners, the wardens, lockdowns, and then vicious fights throughout the prison.

So, many dead at the end, quite an amount gruesome mayhem, the young doctor surviving – Dr West moving out to continue his experiments (though, so far, no sequel).

BRIDE OF RE-ANIMATOR

US, US, 1990, 96 minutes, Colour.

Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott, Claude Earl Jones, Fabuaba Udenio, David Gale, Kathleen Kinmont.

Directed by Brian Yuzna.

Stuart Gordon’s initial film, Re-animator, 1985, received strong welcome as a 1980s horror film, based on a novel by H.P. Lovecraft but owing much to the influence of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

In the first film there were experiments, skin grafts, experiments with reviving the dead, undertaken at Massachusetts University by two young doctors played by Jeffrey Combs and Bruce Abbott. As the title suggests, reanimation.

This sequel, five years later, again based on the Lovecraft stories, was directed by Brian Yuzna (who had just directed the body horror film, Society). It begins eight months after the ending of the first film, the two doctors finding themselves involved in warfare in Peru, but still the interest in reviving lives.

Then, they are back in Massachusetts involved in the same experiments. Lovecraft’s title includes the name of the key doctor, Herbert West. He is played with serious intensity and some relentlessness by Jeffrey Combs, looking something like a diminutive Clark Kent, glasses, intensely serious. His associate, Daniel Kane, is tall and lanky, intense but also having some relationships. And, there is the young girl they saw at their work in Peru and has come to the US.

Dr West is still continuing his experiments, a particular focus on a young woman, friend of Daniel, her surgery, his attempts to revive her, her coming to life in the same vein as the Bride of Frankenstein. There are also hidden in a room, some of the reanimated survivors, especially the wife of an investigator who keeps coming to interrogate the two doctors – but then becomes a victim, along with the other living dead, pursued by his wife, continually bringing out his official badge.

In the meantime, the doctor from the original film, separated from his body, only a head, continues to haunt people, especially another doctor involved in experiments played by Claude Earl Jones (no relation!).

Many laboratory sequences moving towards some kind of final mayhem, involving the young girl from Peru, her attraction to Dan, coming to the laboratory, pursued by the Bride, the other creatures getting loose and running amok, including the separated head. Dan is torn between the achievement and his emotions for the women. No such scruple for Dr West, relentlessly moving on, trying to escape.

And the film ends suddenly – but, in 2003, a further sequel, Beyond Reanimator and the return of the star, Jeffrey Combs as Dr West.