Trailer
Plot summary
At the University of Zurich, Herbert West revives his dead professor, Dr. Hans Gruber, and blames the result on too large a dose. He enrolls as a medical student at Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts, takes a room in Dan Cain's house and builds a laboratory in the basement. He shows Dan the reagent by bringing Dan's dead cat back, and the animal turns vicious. Megan Halsey, Dan's fiancée and the dean's daughter, comes upon the experiment and is appalled. Dan tells Dean Halsey that the cat was revived, and the dean takes it as proof that the two have lost their minds. With both barred from the school, West and Dan plan to test the reagent on a human corpse in the hospital morgue.
In these lists: The Best Horror Movies of the 1980s
Cast
- Al Berryas Dr. Gruber
- Barbara Pietersas Nurse
- Annyce Holzmanas E-R Patient Corpse
Show all 20 cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Re-Animator (1985)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Jeffrey Combs, who plays mad scientist Herbert West, had never read any H. P. Lovecraft before landing the role and was taken aback by the script; he said he only took the job because he needed the work and assumed the film would never reach a wide audience.
- The glowing green 'reanimating agent' that Herbert West injects into corpses to bring them back to life was actually the real chemical luminol.
- Makeup effects artist John Naulin called Re-Animator the bloodiest film he had ever worked on: he had never used more than about two gallons of fake blood on a previous film, but used twelve times that much on this one.
SPOILER
To create the illusion of Dr. Hill's severed head being carried around by his own headless body, effects designer Tony Doublin built a false upper torso that actor David Gale bent over and stuck his real head through, making it look like the walking corpse was holding the head.- Re-Animator was originally released in theaters completely unrated because the filmmakers feared an X rating from the MPAA; only in early 1986 did they submit a trimmed cut that earned an R, and most home-video releases still used the tougher unrated version.
- A company called ReAnimator LLC, owned by a rival comic publisher's president, sent producer Brian Yuzna and Image Comics a cease-and-desist over the trademark to 'Re-Animator' and Herbert West; the dispute delayed two comic issues and was settled out of court in 2013 with Yuzna dropping his own lawsuit.
