a bit about re-animator

the orignal 1985 motion picture, re-animator, was originally a book adaptation of H.P lovecraft's "Herbert west-Reanimator" (even if i fucking hate h.p lovecraft himself, i am grateful for his book being adapted into a movie i like so much), the original novellete was written between the october of 1921 and the june of 1922 and ended up being serialized in the february to july of 1922. the movie, Re-animator, ended up being directed by Stuart gordon and produced by Brian yuzna (who would go to direct the sequel to the original 1985 motion picture, Bride of Re-animator), with a smaller movie budget of $900,000-1.3 million dollars. the film was originally intented to be a play, but then was reworked to be a half-hour television pilot. and as you probably know, it ended up being re-worked again into a 1 hour and 26 minute movie. The second movie, Bride of Re-animator, was instead directed by the prior film's producer, Brian yuzna (whom also helped with the writing the movie, along with Rick fry and Zeph E. Daniel. ((Zeph also apparently started a podcast in 2002 so uh??? thats something? judging by the wikipedia page its uhh... interesting...? i havent listened to it and don't plan to, just for context's sake, and it's not related to reanimator in like.. anyway probably? so feel free to take this as just a small little piece of trivia that i thought was interesting.)). Bride ended up having a bit bigger of a budget than the prior movie, and it shows! the special effects are mostly pretty cool, and even when you can painfully tell this moive was made in 1990 just by Dr. Hill's floating head, it definitely adds to the charm of a weird splatter movie such as Bride of Re-animator.

why I love reanimator

if you've read my "stuff i like" on my about me, or seen my website before i changed it's theme entirely, then you know i think science is pretty cool, and you'd know i think the same about horror movies! and this is exactly why i like reanimator so much. its a perfect blend of two my interests, even if reanimator is definitly not scientifically accurate, i dont care because i dont need it to be scientifically accurate. theres definetly a bit of of the reanimator franchise i don't like (i.e: that one scene with meg + the weird third one they made??? did not like that one!!), but all in all, reanimator is a big favorite of mine when it comes to horror movies! even if definitely fucking hate h.p lovecraft, i am grateful that his book was adapted into the movie i like so much, this does complicate my relationship with the film franchise of course, but i am aware that i'm able to enjoy things whilst being critical of the OG creator(s) and the content portrayed in said media, and, of course, it's important to be critical of the media you consume, which is what i'll do and continue to do with re-animator and others like it (and of course with other un-like it, can't forget those guys. theres a lotta movies and books an other stuff to like!). anyways, "critical media analysis" rant out of the way, there's many other reasons i love re-animator other than my interest in horror and science. i love how the general tone is, how the characters interact, even the wardrobe i like! it's altogether just a pretty cool movie and film franchise. (for the most part... tip: dont watch beyond reanimator, it's like really bad in like... so many ways i cant even explain it.)

the colors in the movie really help with the whole asethetic of it too! from the warmness of the scenes with meg and dan to the cold and almost sickly feel to the scenes in the morgue, it definitely gets it right in that regard, which is just another reason why I have so much love for this somewhat sleezy movie. I'm sure a lot of the reason people enjoy old slasher/horror films like the exorcist or friday the 13th is because of the general 70s-late 80s (or mid to early 90s i guess) aesthetic that these movies have, from the grainy-ness of the film to the cozy and at times nauseating lighting, it is definitely a beloved trait of many older slasher/horror movies. (this of course goes for non-slasher/horror movies from the 70s-90s as well, but I didn't want to get too off-topic.)

so, as you probably know if you've either watched or interreacted with the reanimator fandom, both reanimator movies (not including beyond reanimator for........................reasons...................................) have a lot of homosexual, or generally queer, subtex, and as a queer person, i feel this is very much key to the reason so many people enjoy this movie. there's quite a few homoerotic slasher movies or even torture porn (such as saw 2004, which i might make a shrine for if i get to it!! good old classic homoerotic cutting your foot off and gripping another man.), and re-animator is definitely one of them. there's a lot of queerness in slasher movies even outside of homoeroticism, and this usually comes with the weirdness of so many slashers lifestyles, if all these characters were to actually be canonically queer, it wouldn't be amazing reprensentation, but as a queer person i don't mind imagining that herbert or even dan is like me in a way. re-animator means a lot to me for this reason, and i think it's ok that this is my point of view, considering i share it with so many others.

anyways sorry if i sounded kinda prentenious while writing this stuff about reanimator, when i write a big article like this i tend to fall into what i call "essay mode" and try to make it kinda grammatically correct at least so uh, sorry if it doesnt really fit the tone of how i sound on other places around the site. i pretty much just used wikipedia [1][2][3][4] and my own noggin for research with this one so uh, if you wanna correct me on anything just leave a note on my guest book if you want! anyways i hope you enjoyed my talking about reanimator.