'Re-Animator' is a gory trip into movie madness

Re-Animator (1985)
Starring: Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott, Barbara Crampton, David Gale and Robert Sampson
Director: Stuart Gordon
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Dan's new roommate and fellow third-year med student, Herbert West (Combs) draws him into his bizarre (and successful) experiments with re-animating dead bodies.

"Re-Animator" is one of the craziest movies ever made, and it ranks up there with "Dead Alive" as one of the funniest creepy movies ever made. While it is nowhere near as gory as "Dead Alive" and the slapstick isn't quite as sharp, it features a cleverer script and a superior cast.

Jeffrey Combs is particularly excellent as Herbert West. We get the sense that he's a bit weird early in the film and highly strung; Combs performance puts the viewer in mind of Peter Cushing's Victor Frankenstein in the first couple of Hammer Frankenstein films... coldblooded, arrogant and probably sociopathic but not necessarily completely bonkers. When West calmly a bone saw through the chest of a zombie and then immediately sets about reanimating its recently deceased victim, it's clear not just from his actions but from Combs performance that he more than a little off. And when he later animates the severed head of an obnoxious rival (likewise brilliantly played by David Gale), it's clear that he is completely unhinged.

Speaking of the severed head, it gives rise to some of the most unnerving moments in the film, as well some of the funniest. I don't want to go into too much details, because I'd ruin the shock value. Suffice to say, it's something that needs to be seen.

Credit also needs to be go to Bruce Abbott and Barbara Crampton. While Combs and Gale are giving performances that seem like they just teleported in from a Hammer Films set in 1960, they play their characters mostly low-key. This, combined with the fact that their characters are nice and normal people, give the audience someone to identify with as the film unfolds and provide an island of calm in the middle of the evermore turbulent sea of madness that is this movie.


"Re-Animator" elevates Herbert West among the great movie mad doctors, even if, according to the very informative interview included on the Achor Bay edition of the film, he was actually a minor character in the script and through most of the filming. It wasn't until "Re-Animator" was crafted into a releasable movie that the emphasis shifted to Herbert. (Comments in the interviews on the DVD even make me wonder if the filmmakers knew they were making a comedy until late in the process....)

Whether intentional or accidental art, this is one of those movies that gets everything right, from the mood-setting prologue, through its score (which spoofs Bernard Hermann's famous music for "Psycho") to its chilling end. It's also feels as fresh as when it first released in 1985. This is one of those very rare horror movies that actually deserves the label "classic."

If you are inclined to add this film to your personal library, make sure you get the limited edition "unrated" version from Anchor Bay. The cut presented there may be shorter than the R-rated version, but the humor and shocks are more outrageous than its tamer and slightly bloated counterpart. The disc full of extras is also something that you'll find extremely interesting if you have any interest at all in the filmmaking process. (The same is true of the commentary tracks.)

It's the Mall Security of the future!

Chopping Mall (aka "Killbots") (1986)
Starring: Kelli Maroney, Tony O'Dell, Russell Todd, Suzee Slater, Karrie Emerson, Nick Slater, and Barbara Crampton
Director: Jim Wynorski
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

Eight typical teenaged slasher-movie characters (and therefore perpetually horny) hide out in a shopping mall to have an orgy in the mattress store. Unfortunately for them, they end up are trapped overnight with three heavily armed security robots that have malfunctioned and gone murderous due to a power surge.


Although "Chopping Mall" isn't as good as I remember it as being from when I was a kid, it's still a fun movie. It moves along at a brisk pace and it's got a goofy, upbeat tone (despite the flying laserbeams and exploding head) that makes it truly fun to watch. And while the movie is having fun with both the sci-fi and slasher genres, it still manages to make the viewer care about the characters. (Oh and the girls who take their tops off are girls who SHOULD be showing off their, um, assets.)

The acting over all is better than what is usually found in a film of this type, and lead Kelli Maroney is particularly good. The script is also better than what is often found in a film of this kind, although there really isn't anything surprising (aside from killer robots), and veteran slasher-movie watchers will know early on who lives and who dies. However, the jokes are actually funny, the action entertaining, and, despite my comment that the teens are typical slasher movie characters, they don't split up one at a time once they discover they are being hunted by killer robots. (In other words, they behave in far smarter fashion than most characters in this sort of film, and it makes the movie all the stronger for it.)

Finally, the robots are surprisingly well-done. They look pretty cool for the kind of movie this is, and for the period in which it was made. (Yeah, they look a bit like they came off the shelf at Radio Shack, but it was the 1980s for crying out loud! Macintoshes still booted off a single floppy disc that ALSO held a full working word processor on it, as well as the system software!)

"Chopping Mall" is the perfect addition to a Bad Movie Night line-up.

Saturday Scream Queen: Barbara Crampton

Barbara Crampton is best-recognized by lonely housewives and unemployed men for her recurring roles on various day-time soap operas over the years. But for fans of horror and sci-fi movies, it's her roles in films from Full Moon and Empire Pictures that she is best known for.

Click here to read reviews of films featuring Barbara Crampton at The Charles Band Collection.

Weird Science brings sexual perversion 'From Beyond'

From Beyond (1986)
Starring: Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Ken Foree, Ted Sorel and Carolyn Purdy-Gordon
Director: Stuart Gordon
Producers: Brian Yunza and Charles Band
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

A pair of physicists (Combs and Sorel) create a machine that causes our dimension to merge with another. They end up unleashing horrors--and sexual perversion--unlike any our world has ever seen before.


"From Beyond" is one of those gory, goopy movies that you do NOT want to watch while eating. If you like fast-paced monster movies with a high quotient of mad doctors--there is only one out of the five major characters who isn't a doctor who is unhinged in some fashion--and you don't mind sexually-themed horror, then you'll enjoy the heck out of this movie.

With excellent special effects--particularly during the final battle against the monstrous creature from beyond--and great performances by all the actors, this movie is a fun ride. Although only the first few minutes of the film is actually based on H.P. Lovecraft's story of the same title, Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton both capture the obsession and the madness that was a hallmark of many of his characters and stories. Further, the creatures and the entire style of the movie evokes the atmosphere of Lovecraft's writings. Even better, the film provides some great laughs to offset the terror, with Ken Foree (best-known for his role in the original "Dawn of the Dead") serving double-duty as comic relief and Macho Action Hero and succeeding equally well at both.

"From Beyond" is an excellent movie to show at a Halloween party where adults or older teens make up those in attendence. If you want to get a copy to show, make sure you get the unrrated DVD director's cut, because it features some really cool scenes that were cut to earn it an R rating during its original release--such the scene where Dr. Bloch (Carolyn Purdy-Gordon) has her brain sucked out through her eye-socket and some of the bits of a tentacle-beast from Dimension Lovecraft getting to know Dr. Katherine McMichaels really well.

'Robot Wars' squanders its potential

Robot Wars (aka "Robot Jox 2") (1993)
Starring: Don Michael Paul, Barbara Crampton, James Staley, Lisa Rinna, Danny Kamekona and Peter Haskall
Director: Albert Band
Producer: Charles Band
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

In 2041, decades after the Great Robot War and Toxic Gas Scare, the American Southwest has ceceeded from the Union and is at a state of war with the "Centros", a state of uneasy peace with the remnants of the United States, and a trading partner of China. When the last known surviving giant robot--now being used as an armored, heavily armed passenger transport, is hijacked--it's up to rebellious robot pilot Captain Drake (Paul) and the beautiful archeologist Dr. Leda (Crampton) to save the day by finding the burial site of the rumored second suriving combat robot, Mega-1.


"Robot Wars" is one of three movies produced by B-movie mogul Charles Band that featured giant robots piloted by humans ("Robot Jox" and "Crash and Burn" being the other two). I've wondered if they were inspired by Japanese cartoons or the then popular miniature and roleplaying lines from FASA called "BattleTech" and "MechWarrior".

"Robot Wars" answered my question for me. The costume designs and even the look of Mega-1 reminded me very strongly of "MechWarrior". Heck, the film even felt a little like a BattleTech/MechWarrior game with the robots and other technology being more interesting than the human characters.

This brief movie (it's barely over an hour long) is another example of a Full Moon picture that's too short. There is all sorts of back story that was needed for the film to be as good as it had potential for being. (What was the past history of Captain Drake and General Wa-Lee (played with sinister glee by Danny Kamekona)? It was obviously extensive, but we get to learn nothing about it. How did America disintergrate? Why do the Centros seem to be speaking something other than Spanish? These are just a few of the questions that popped into my mind as I watched the movie and I realized it was going to end without any explanations. (And some of the questions could have been answered if the script had been better. There's a scene that could have been easily been used to give us the Wa-Lee/Drake backstory, but it's instead wasted on some very unfunny jokes about how women can be horndogs, too.)

Although this is a film that's clearly made for young kids (or adults who are content if all a movie offers are neat stop-motion special effects featuring giant battle-bots duking it out and shooting laser beams at each other), I still think it could have benefitted from just a little more time being spent on developing the world in which it takes place. That could have at the very least made the film more memorable and lifted it from mediocre to okay.

A chilling horror film lurks behind a goofy title...

Castle Freak (1995)
Starring: Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Jessica Dollarhide, and Jonathan Fuller
Director: Stuart Gordon
Producers: Albert Band, Charles Band and Maurizio Maggi

John and Susan Reilly (Combs and Crampton) travel to Italy with their recently blinded daughter Rebecca (Dollarhide) to inspect a castle they've just inherited. The Reillys soon discover the old owner of the castle had harbored a deep and twisted secret... a secret which has escaped and is now roaming the shadowy halls claiming victims.


"Castle Freak" is a horror film of such exceptionally high quality that it's surprising to learn it was made as a direct-to-video release. It is without question one of the best movies to come out of the Full Moon low-budget fantasy factory.

The film features a great script that presents three-dimensional characters dealing both with all-too-real horrors that normal people face every day (a family that's disintegrating due to a tragedy caused by the negligence of one parent, the inability of another to forgive, and the strain and guilt both feel in trying to live with the reality that one child is dead and another is permanently crippled) and the inconceivable horror that lurks within their new home. Even minor characters, such as the chief of police in the small town by the castle, feel fully realized and come across as living, breathing human beings.

These very well-rendered characters are brought to full life by the extremely talented cast, with Jeffrey Combs delivering a particularly impressive performance. In other films I've seen Combs in, he's seemed most comfortable when doing comedy--he was a bit wooden in "Doctor Mordrid" , but he ROCKED in "Re-Animator" and the 1991 version of "The Pit and the Pendulum" where he played roles that were marked by dark humor and twisted levity--but here in "Castle Freak" he plays a part that is purely dramatic and he delivers a nuanced and thoroughly convincing performance of a man who is trying his best to make up for a horrible shortcoming while trying to save what's left of his family. His eventual transformation from Everyman into Hero when he realizes the danger his family is in is more convincing here than in just about any other horror film you'd care to mention.

Another remarkable performance is given by Jessica Dollarhide who plays the recently blinded Rebecca. She portrays a kid who is genuinely nice and likable, someone who wants to be independent yet who also recognizes that her parents have needs as well. She plays the part with very little of the obnoxiousness and hysteria that seems to be the hallmark of teenaged characters in this genre... except for the well-justified hysteria that arises when the "castle freak" visits.

The film is also perfectly photographed and expertly edited. Director Stuart Gordon and cinematographer Mario Vulpiani use every trick in their cinematic bag to make the castle where the film takes place--which was a genuine 12th century castle owned by Full Moon Entertainment, and which served as the location for a number of the company's productions--take on a life of its own and make the film that much more intense. The effectiveness of the gore and make-up effects are gut-wrenchingly believeable, and, together with the skillfully executed camerawork make this movie seem like it was made for ten times the money that was actually spent.

"Castle Freak" truly is a film where every dollar of the budget is visable on the screen, and it's a movie where they get just about everything right.

Unfortunately, the one area where they miss the mark is with the titular "castle freak." The film would have been perfect if he had been just a little more sympathetic (ala Boris Karloff's portrayal of the Frankenstein Monster in the 1932 version of "Frankenstein"). All the elements are here to have made the creature an object of our sympathy--and given the horrible tortures that shaped him into what he is, we still end up feeling a little sorry for him, but not as much as we could have if Jonathan Fuller had been an actor of Karloff's caliber. Fuller isn't bad as the creature, but he's not great. (A more sympathetic portrayal of the "castle freak" would have made the gruesome cannibal rape scene all the more horrific.)

A slighlly bigger flaw than Fuller's okay-but-not-great performance is one that's built into its very basic story. The old duchess dies and no curious townsfolk or police do a walkthrough of the castle? That's all it would have taken to find the poor "castle freak" in his prison, and subsequently turned this from a horror movie to a Hallmark Special about a family resettling to a castle in Italy and rekindling their love for each other.

Despite that one glaring plothole, "Castle Freak" is a film that's deserving of more attention than it gets, and it's a worthy addition to the library of anyone who appreciates well-made horror films.



Watch a preview of Castle Freak, courtesy of Full Moon Entertainment and YouTube...