“..and what would the note say, Dan? ‘Cat dead, details later’?”
In this country as least, it is safe to say that Bruce Robinson’s script for his film “Withnail & I” has permeated the social lexicon to such a degree that quotations from such may be employed, sparingly and in appropriate circumstances, without fear of embarrassment or misunderstanding. Try as I might, I can’t shake the irrational urge to try to employ Dennis Paoli’s script to Stuart Gordon’s “Re-animator” to similar effect, however ill-judged and ineffectual I know such an effort would be. The film’s dialogue, and more particularly the cast’s delivery of it, carries I think a sense of the same timeless, blackened wit as Robinson’s script, but alas, at the end of the day I suppose modern life simply doesn’t provide enough opportunities to bust out with “you’re not even a second rate scientist”, or “don’t expect it to tango, it’s got a broken back”. Modern life’s loss. If I were some obnoxious jock medical student, or an obnoxious horror convention attendee, we’d be having a gas with this stuff I’m sure. But as it is, I’d at least like to think that “Re-animator”s lack of conversational universality doesn’t in any way diminish the film’s winningly twisted charm.
Only last month, I was wasting space here talking here about Stuart Gordon’s background in theatre, and the corresponding importance his best films place upon tight scripting, memorable characters and strong performances – well, obviously “Re-animator” is the prime example. Not only was it the first film Gordon made after leaving his theatrical career behind, but allegedly he was pretty much forced to resign in disgrace from the Organic Theater company which he had helped found in Chicago, such was the collective disgust of his colleagues at the idea of their director trying to make some dough via a low budget horror film. I don’t know whether or not aforementioned snooty colleagues actually went to see “Re-animator”, but the joke’s on them if they did, as the considerable success Gordon’s film has achieved is driven as much by a hard-won sense of theatrical craftsmanship as it is by nasty ideas and eye-popping gore effects.
Think about it: you’ve got a cast that’s essentially limited to five characters, their personalities and relationship to each other all carefully established and ready to kick off. You’ve got a witty, fast-moving, dialogue-driven script, two or three simple, unspectacular locations, and five really good actors. Dynamite. “Re-animator” could have worked brilliantly on stage, and the old fashioned solidity of it’s execution as a movie is doubly refreshing in the midst of a genre that so often cruises by on visceral thrills, visual weirdness, wafer-thin characters and sloppy, illogical story-telling. Of course, stage plays rarely feature shovel decapitations, intestinal strangulation and mutilated undead cats, which at heart probably has a lot to do with why I’m not writing my ’25 favourite plays’ here, but so, er, yeah – “Re-animator” is win-win on that score really.
Above all, the success of the film is in the characters and the cast, and how many ‘80s horror movies can you really say that about? I’m assuming you’ve probably seen it, so I don’t have to tell you that Jeffrey Combs is the stuff of legend, that David Gale as Dr. Hill is one of the all time great villains, that Bruce Abbot and Barbara Crampton manage to invest their traditionally dull “normal” roles (always the anchors that drag down a good gothic or Frankenstein movie) with a rare degree of depth and likeability. It says a lot that I made it cheerfully through both of Bruce Yuzna’s objectively-quite-poor sequels and thoroughly enjoyed them, such was my happiness at seeing Herbert West and Dan Cain and Dr. Hill back in action, getting up to further necrotic mischief.
Like I say, you’ve probably seen “Re-animator”. You probably don’t need me to tell you how great it is, how perfectly pitched Gordon’s mixture of black humour and genuinely disturbing nastiness is, how well paced the film is, and how, unlike the sequels, it knows exactly where to stop, and never spoils the brew by letting things boil over into silliness. It is the modest little horror movie that does *everything* right, and it is heartening that its killer rep as a fan favourite reflects that. “Who’d believe a talking head? Get a job in a sideshow!” Ha, ha, yeah… it’s all in the way he tells ‘em I think.
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