Badmovies.org Forum

I finally got around to renting this one.

I'm not sure if there's an official site (over[e])view of it I missing with the search feature, but I'm starting it here because:

A) It will probably get more traffic because

B) It's hard to qualify for people in my generation who saw it as little kids, or would have if our parents hadn't been mediators (not a bad thing, btw).

One minute to the next I kept going from laughter to utter shock and vice versa. I've no context, thus I can't file it under 80s shlock or 80s valiant attempts.

Anyone see it as a teen or older when it first hit theaters?

I got to see Re-Animator uncut back when it first came out on VHS. I was around 11 at the time.  I hadn't seen anything like it at that point and it still remains a big favorite of mine.

There are so many great lines in it and the performances are quite a high notch above what was being offered in horror movies at that time.

One of the most brilliant mixes of comedy and horror and Stuart Gordon has never topped himself.

I did - down in Hollywood, Florida. 

I was out with a girl I was seeing at the time, and while in line, we ran into a friend of hers and her date.  Neither of the girls had ever heard of HP Lovecraft, but both guys had.  While we waited, we tried to explain Lovecraft's style to them, and contrast Lovecraft to Stephen King (with whom they were familiar).

It was fairly crowded, but not full.  About ten minutes into the movie, roughly half the audience left.

On our way out, my date said "that movie should have been rated X.  That was brutal."

 :teddyr:

Wow, I was about the same age as you when I first saw it, thought it was crazy.  Like you, I loved the mix of humor and horror, but, in my young boy mind, I also couldn't get out of my head the scene with the dude trying to "give head" to that one chick on the table... that was FREAKY!

Sorry to brag, but that 'head scene' was my fiance's favorite part. I'm such a lucky guy  :twirl:

Any other suggestions for gross-out 80s horror?

Two words.

Street Trash.

Okay, here are some more words:

Brain Damage
Society
Night of the Creeps

And if you liked Re-Animator, you might like From Beyond, the movie Stuart Gordon followed it up with.

Re-Animator is a favorite movie of mine.  When I was a little kid, my parents had a strict no R rated movie policy, so most of these movies I didn't see until I was a teenager and they relaxed, but back around the time this movie came out my parents had me under the belief that horror movies were these bloodbaths.  Front to back, they were nothing but mayhem, dismemberment and disembowelment with no semblance of plot.  When I was old enough to start seeing them, or I was lucky enough to catch one on a late show or something, I was always disappointed because they never lived up to my mother's hysteria-driven descriptions.  Re-Animator was the rare example.  While it wasn't two hours of carnage and did have a story, contrary to what my mom told me, it was still extremely gory and loaded with the sort of things she warned me about, not that heeded those warnings, Re-Animator was one movie I can point to and say, "That movie changed the way I watch other movies."  I was, essentially, a gorehound following my first viewing. 

I did the meet and greet thing with Jeffrey Combs a few years ago at a local horror con (Rock and Shock in Worcester, Mass, FYI) and he was awesome.  I've had mixed reactions when meeting these genre celeb types.  Some awesome (Betsy Palmer, Bill Moseley, Joe Pilato), some heart-breaking (Tom Savini, Michael Berryman, Howard Sherman).  Combs fits into the prior category, but he was such a weirdo.  I always imagined that he was just great at playing weirdos but there's a reason for that. 

I tried to engage him on the topic of Beyond Re-Animator and he dodged every question.  Instead, he simply ran his fingers over the slip cover of the Elite edition DVD that had just been released at the time.  He looked up at me and said in that familiar Herbert West tone, "I've been seeing a lot of these lately, but yours is different.  The paper is of a higher quality."  Then he looked back down at it and signed it, To Bryan, You're Next!  And off I went.

He was also selling more Star Trek related stuff than horror related merch.  Weird.

Saw this for the first time this year.  It took me a while to watch it, sure, but it was worth the wait.  Ludicrous fun that wasn't as brutal as people seemed to imply, but maybe I'm just desensitized to this stuff...

This movie is great, one of my all time favorite movies along with From Beyond which thankfully is finally coming out on dvd. This movie is a requirment for every fan of horror movie to see.
And on a further note:
I recently started reading Lovecraft and I never knew until now how much Stephen King ripped him off. "IT" and the "Dark tower" series are completely taken from stuff Lovecraft did.

Re-Animator is a classic, and quite possibly the best piece of horror from the 80s.  Everyone in the film put in a solid performance and the film is just fun as hell.  When I first started to get into horror, I had numerous people order me to rent the film.  I finally got around to renting an old, ratty, vhs copy and had no idea what I was in for.

There are so many great scenes in the film.  The cat, Dr. Hill's head on the note-pin, the scene with Dr. Hill and a very nude Barbara Crampton, etc.  It's a must see for anyone even remotely interested in horror.

Wow.. I don't know if I should be envious or horrified.  :smile: