Bride of Re-Animator

Dir: Brian Yuzna

1990

*****

A lot of people saw Bride of Re-Animator as a cash-in on the original film’s popularity, that it wasn’t necessary and some even said it was a pointless and forgettable sequel. Utter nonsense. I actually think Bride of Re-Animator is on par with the 1985 original and that Brian Yuzna is just as talented as Stuart Gordon. I guess many Gordon fans were let down by the fact he didn’t return to direct the sequel but those of us with great taste know that Yuzna is just as creative and competent. The story certainly isn’t pointless because it deals with the continuation of H.P. Lovecraft’s original Herbert West–Re-animator story, covering episodes V - The Horror from the Shadows and VI - The Tomb-Legions. I’m a huge Stuart Gordon fan but it was fine that he didn’t return, although it was a shame Barbara Crampton turned down a cameo based on advice from her agent; Her agency supposedly convinced her that it was beneath her to have such a small role. Everyone else however returned for more macabre mayhem. Eight months after the events of Re-Animator, doctors Herbert West and Dan Cain (Jeffrey Combs and Bruce Abbot) are working as medics in the middle of a bloody Peruvian civil war. In the chaos of battle and with plenty of casualties to work on, they are free to experiment with West's re-animation reagent. When their medical tent is stormed by the enemy troops, West and Cain return home to Arkham, Massachusetts. There, they resume their former jobs as doctors at Miskatonic University Hospital, and West returns to the basement laboratory of Cain's house to continue his research. Using parts pilfered from both the hospital's morgue and from the cemetery conveniently located next door, West discovers that his reagent can re-animate body parts by themselves. He becomes determined to create an entire living person from disparate body parts. West discovers the heart of Megan Halsey, Cain's fiancée, in the hospital morgue. With the promise to use her heart to re-animate a new Megan, West convinces Cain to help him with his project. Also stored in the morgue is the rest of the evidence from the previous "Miskatonic Massacre". Inside, pathologist Dr. Wilbur Graves discovers a vial of West's reagent and the severed head of Dr. Carl Hill (a returning David Gale). Using the reagent, he re-animates Hill's head. Meanwhile, police officer Lt. Leslie Chapham (Claude Earl Jones) begins investigating West and Cain. He bears a grudge against the pair, as they were the only unaffected survivors of the Miskatonic Massacre; the dead body of Chapham's wife was re-animated into a crazed zombie during the incident. Chapham suspects West and Cain were responsible. When he stops by their house to question them, he discovers West's corpse-filled lab and the two get into an ugly confrontation. A fight ensues and West ends up killing Chapham by means of cloth treated with a chemical which causes cardiac arrest when inhaled (a product of West's research into obtaining the freshest possible corpses for his experiments). West then re-animates the police officer with the intention of covering up his crime. Chapham violently wanders out of the house and into the cemetery next door. Hill also bears a grudge against West, as West was responsible for his decapitation, the destruction of his body, taking away Megan (with whom he was obsessed), and having better theories about reanimation than himself. Using hypnotic powers, Hill commands Chapham to force Dr. Graves to stitch bat wings onto his neck, giving him back his mobility. He also extends his mental control to all of the zombie survivors of the Miskatonic Massacre. When one of Cain's patients, the beautiful Gloria (Kathleen Kinmont), dies, West collects the last piece he needs for his creation: her head. With a complete body stitched and wired together, West and Cain inject the re-animation reagent into Meg's heart. While waiting for the reagent to take effect, a package is delivered to their house. West retrieves and opens it. From inside, Hill's winged head flies out. Simultaneously, all of the zombies he controls break into the house. West retreats back to the basement lab, where his creation, the Bride, has awoken. A catfight breaks out between the Bride and Cain's current girlfriend, Italian journalist Francesca Danelli (Fabiana Udenio), whom he met in Peru. Cain rejects the Bride's love and sides with Francesca. Heart-broken, the Bride rips Megan's heart out of her own chest and then literally falls to pieces. West diagnoses this as tissue rejection. Hill and his zombies force West, Cain and Francesca to retreat through the wall of the lab and into a crypt in the neighboring cemetery. Inside, all of West's prior test subjects arise and make their way towards him, stopping only when Herbert commands them to. The unstable crypt begins to collapse, trapping Hill, West and the zombies. Cain and Francesca manage to escape the debris and claw their way to the surface of the cemetery together. Hill, stuck in the debris, laughs manically, while Megan's heart, still in the hand of the Bride, stops beating. The scene where Megan/The Bride/Gloria is rejected by Cain is one of the most heart-breaking scenes in the history of cinema. Among the comedy, horror and gore this is a really tender moment that has been criminally overlooked ever since. The film is essentially more of the same from the first movie but I found this one to have more emotion, as well as more laughs and silliness. It is still very much a magical film that could only come from the minds of Gordon/Yuzna/Lovecraft. H.P. was still very much there and in a rather nice scene Dr. West suggests that the noises coming from his laboratory wall are just "probably rats in the wall". This is of course a reference to one of H.P. Lovecraft's better known stories "Rats In The Wall". One idea for a sequel involved Dan Cain taking the job of a building superintendent to surreptitiously continue working on Meg Halsey's body at night. When government agents discover his whereabouts, they secret him away to the White House where he is reunited with Herbert West and instructed to reanimate the President of the United States. A similar idea was later used for the unproduced sequel House of Re-Animator, it will probably never happen but we live in hope. I love the first film, but I would admit that I adore the sequel just that little bit more.