I find it interesting that Re-Animator
has never been, as far as I’m aware, a particularly controversial
film. Interesting, but not inexplicable by any means. To attack
such a film for its content would be like complaining that Soldier
of Fortune has a right-wing bias. That is to say, those who care
have bigger fish to fry, and those who would care to consume the
material knew exactly what they were getting themselves into, and
thus can hardly complain.
The character of Herbert West (Jeffrey
Combs) is one that I’ve always found truly fascinating. Most
Anti-Heroes are driven by some sympathetic desire. That desire could
be to help people they care about, or simply to have peace. In
West’s case however, his driving force is simply the pursuit of
knowledge. He’s hardly the first mad scientist in the history of
fiction to have such a desire, but most have at least some remote
sense of an end-goal. Even Frankenstein talked of bringing loved
ones back from the grave as they were in life.
Not so with West, who seems to revive
the dead solely to satisfy his own morbid curiosity about the nature
of life. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that Stuart
Gordon intended some sort of Religious commentary. West as a
completely indifferent being, who is almost all-powerful in any
environment which he enters, and is completely uninterested in the
affairs of humans. As a result, he brings conflict among those who
seek to understand and use his power for their own ends. His very
mind appears to be a force of nature
Beyond West, the plot of Re Animator is
wonderfully insane, but of little consequence. By the end of the
movie, there are many gory dead bodies that have been brought back
from the grave, and a woman has been raped by a headless corpse. The
other characters are interesting, but I personally feel that Dan Cain
(Bruce Abbott) is of more consequence in Bride of Re Animator. In
this film, he serves primarily to give us one character who can play
the hero.
Doctor Carl Hill (David Gale), on the
other hand exists primarily to give us a generically evil scientist
villain whose only role is to be actively malevolent, thus
technically making him worse than West by default. He wants to steal
West's work, and take the credit and the power for himself. His
existence allows West to take the designation of “Protagonist,”
simply because West, if left to his own devices, would at least be
limited to a fairly small number of re-animated corpses, with no
sinister intent.
It would seem that a movie with a
protagonist so evil that he could easily serve as a
moustache-twirling villain in almost any other film would be too
depressing to bother with. But I find Re Animator to be truly
fascinating, for its mixture of carnage, characterization, and
comedy.
I’m not sure what it says about this
film that I find West to be easily the scariest aspect. While his
persona is more malevolent, West has what could easily be described
as a Hannibal Lector vibe. He’s smarter than everyone around him.
And while he may be distinguished from worse villains by lack of
malice, he’s also distinguished by the absolute certainty that he
will not lose.
If you can’t deal with blood or gore,
skip this movie. But if you can, watch it, period.
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