Re-Animator

Let's just say it's been a good few years since I've seen Stuart Gordon's Re-Animator - but I've seen it that many times over the years it's been scarred in my memory as a great horror film. When I discovered the wonders of DVD a couple of years back I was bewildered by the choice of what to buy - and one day while deciding between the directors cut of Dawn of the Dead and Re-Animator, I went for Dawn thinking I could pick up Re-Animator at a later date. Bad move - not only did I discover my Dawn was a threadbare flipper disc but all copies of Re-Animator soon vanished off the face off earth (unless you were cash crazy and bought one at Ebay for big bucks!!) That was then, as recently Elite saw sense and repressed the disc and smiles spread across the faces of horror fans once again.

The story involves whizz kid scientist Herbert West and his somewhat dubious experiments into re-animating dead things, which leads to many hilarious and very gory situations.

My memory served me well with this gem of a movie, the one thing that struck me different though was that this was the first time I had seen the film in it's unrated gory directors cut. Normally this would mean a few minutes extra running time added to the old R Rated version - but not here - this unrated version actually runs about 20 minutes shorter !! What the hell you cry - but hey, don't panic - it works great!! The film moves along at a great pace, not losing your interest at any point and the gore set-pieces are simply fantastic (several of which UK viewers won't have seen before).

But what about thoes other 20 minutes I'm missing from the R Rated version - well, their there in the form of extras. It's actually mostly talkie stuff, some of which I really liked (Jeffrey Combs and David Gale are both simply fantastic throughout the movie). So, it would have been nice to have the opportinity of watching the R rated version in it's entirety (something to be considered for any future release).

The film is simply brilliant though, more so in widescreen with a nice clean print (though sadly in mono sound). The disc is a delight also with not only the aforementioned 20 minutes of R rated footage (as well as a wicked spoiler dream sequence that's never been seen before), there's two great fun audio commentarys - one with director Gordon and one with the cast (Combs and co have a lot of fun here!) There's also the usual trailers, teasers and TV spots which are interesting as always if you like that kind of thing (and I do).

The film's simply fantastic, the disc is lovely - hunt this down while you still can! An essential addition to any horror fan's collection - buy it !!

Thanks to Dave at DC-DVD for finding one for me - Alan