Displaying items by tag: Elsa Pataki

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).