DVD
Bride of Re-Animator (1990)

Starring: Bruce Abbott, Fabiana Udenio, Kathleen Kinmont and Jeffrey Combs
Tartan Grindhouse
RRP: £9.99
TVD3802
Certificate: 18
Available 12 November 2007


Returning from a war zone, where he was experimenting with his obsession of bodily re-animation, Herbert West returns to the Miskatonic Hospital in Arkham with his assistant Dan Cain. Lt. Chapman is investigating missing body parts from a recent massacre at the hospital, and soon traces them to the house that West and Cain share. However, when the policeman is accidentally killed, they are forced to reanimate him, with disastrous consequences. Meanwhile, West's amalgamation of stolen female body parts is ready to take life, just as his previous failed experiments come back to haunt him...

Under the auspices of being a black comedy, this film in actuality is a complete mess. Stick an eye on some fingers or a leg on a head, and that makes it funny? Er... no.

None of the characters act with any logic or common sense. Francesca Danelli, Cain's love interest still comes back for more after she is shown some of the zombiefied people the two men have re-animated and sees her dead dog brought back with a human hand attached. Er... no. If anyone witnessed that sort of thing they would be miles away before you could say Frankenstein. Talking of which, this is a closer reworking of Bride of Frankenstein than H.P. Lovecraft's classic story Henry West: Re-Animator, and as in so many adaptations of Mary Shelley's novel, the creature is sympathetic to someone other than it's creator - in this case Dan Cain.

Unfortunately, I was obliged to suffer this film in several sittings, the reason being it is so tedious and predictable. Lt Chapman dies; he's re-animated. The dog dies; it's re-animated. The young woman in the hospital dies... Any guesses? Well done, you must all be psychic. This is Frankenstein meets a zombie film, with no structure, common-sense narrative or progression. It's simply a run-around, and a not very good one at that.

Ty Power

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