Re-Animator

Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott) is a very happy med student. He has a wonderful girlfriend, Megan (Barbra Cramton); he is well liked by the Dean, Alan Halsey (Robert Sampton), who is also Megan's dad; and has a bright career ahead of him.  That is until Herbert West (Jeffery Combs) shows up.  He is a med student from Europe that has transferred for unknown reasons. He becomes Dan's roommate, against the will of Megan, and soon starts turning things upside down. West has theories about the brain that contradict the main brain guy at the school, Dr. Carl Hill (David Gale), and he's not afraid to say them. He is also in possession of a glowing green goo that can actually bring people back to life.  He proves it to Dan by bringing a dead cat back to life (Dan's dead cat, I might add).

With Dan as a believer, they perform secret experiments, which go a little out of control, and the Dean ends up dying. But that's okay, West has tons of goo.  Megan shows up soon after and she thinks her dad has gone crazy, because of being an undead guy and all. The Dead Dean is now under the care of Dr. Hill, who has a creepy obsession with Megan. Anyway he performs a lobotomy on the Dead Dean, and discovers that he is in fact dead. He then confronts West about it, wanting the goo for himself. West has a different idea; he beheads Hill and then re-animates both the head and the body to see what would happen. Probably not the smartest of ideas considering that he didn't restrain the body.

Anyway both parts of Hill are re-animated and they knock out West and make their way to the morgue. There they use the goo to re-animate a bunch of corpses. Unfortunately for West, Hill has an advantage on him; using his lobotomy skills he is able to control the recently re-animated. Dan finds West and together they make their way to the morgue, about the same time Megan is kidnapped and also brought to the morgue. There is a fight and only Dan and Megan make it out. I'm guessing everyone else is killed, but since there are sequels, I thinking West made it out somehow too. Anyway the recent events are too much for Megan and she dies which prompts Dan to do the only sensible thing; he buries her and gets on with his life. Just kidding. He uses the goo to re-animate her. The end. What a moron.

I really liked this movie. It was weird and tacky because it was made in the eighties, but it was good. There were a few disturbing parts in it, and my friend couldn't understand why Dan went along with West, but when he's already lost everything, what else is there to lose, you might as well keep going. I guess the saying 'knowing when to walk away from the table' never occurred to him.  And West, well West was just crazy. He was a genius but he didn't know where to draw the line, and I guess not knowing the difference between right and wrong is the basic definition of crazy. That and performing the same actions over and over again expecting different results. He did that too. Note to West: killing your roommate's cat to use it in an experiment; wrong. Crazy and wrong.

The acting was really good in this movie, which in itself is surprising, coupled with  fact that there are actors I actually recognize, it was amazing. The special effects were not so great, but it was the eighties. The make-up on the corpses where cool though. Everything flowed well and there were no random scenes that made no sense.

I don't really understand how lobotomizing the corpses gave Hill the power to control them with his mind, other than that it was a great movie.

Grade: 7/10