Horror in the 90s: 'Bride of Re-Animator'

Bride of Re-Animator (1991)

Directed by Brian Yuzna

Written by Woody Keith, Rick Fry

Starring Jeffrey Combes, Bruce Abbott, Kathleen Kinmont

Release Date February 22nd, 1991

Box Office $2.5 Million

The original Re-Animator, based on an H.P Lovecraft story, and directed by visionary sci-fi horror director Stuart Gordon, was a genuine shocker. Re-Animator posited a modern, for the 1980s, Dr. Frankenstein scenario in which a pair of doctors are working together to solve death. Dr. Herbert West, iconically portrayed by Jeffrey Combes, was a true creep even as his goal was to alleviate death. His arrogance and awkwardness drove him to try and play God with horrific consequences. Many people died others were robbed of their dignity in death and forced to walk the Earth as slobbering, slippery zombies.

Stuart Gordon used Re-Animator to explore his visionary dark humor and darker talent for staging and effects. The practical effects of Re-Animator create a series of horrific scenes of body horror that remain memorable to this day. With Jeffrey Combes leaning into the mad scientist character and Gordon at the top of his talents, Re-Animator earned its status as a cult classic and a must see movie for fans of deeply transgressive horror movies well outside of the mainstream.

Sadly, the cult success of Re-Animator piqued the interest of producers who, desiring to capitalize on popular intellectual property, decided to make a sequel despite not having Gordon's genius to guide it. Instead, the far lesser talented Brian Yuzna stepped in for Gordon and delivered the kind of lazy sequel you only get when the principal partners are merely interested in their return on investment. Despite getting both Jeffrey Combes and the blandly handsome Bruce Abbott to reprise their roles, Bride of Re-Animator is a pale and failing attempt to recapture the horror magic that was Re-Animator.

A mere 8 months after they caused multiple deaths and allowed a man's severed head to commit horrific crimes, Dr. Herbert West (Combes) and Dr. Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott) are laying low in the worst place imaginable. The two are working for Doctors Without Borders in a Central American warzone. Here, Dr. West finds a series of suitable bodies he can experiment on. Freshly dead and relatively intact despite the wounds of war, Dr. West thinks he can bring the dead back to life, if given enough time. Unfortunately for Dr. West, the war is raging out of control and he and Dr. Abbott are forced to flee before they can try any more experiments.

Back in the United States, the doctors make the unexpected decision to return to their old hospital. Somehow, the two have managed to not be blamed for what happened at their former medical school and no one seems at all bothered by them being back at their former hospital. Well, no one except a disgraced Police Detective, Detective Chapham (Claude Earl Jones), who claims to have lost his partner to the massacre 8 months earlier. Also the detective's wife is among those that were left behind as zombies.

Naturally, with West and Abbott back in town, bodies start disappearing. Dr. West is back at it with his experimental 'life-restoring' serum. Unfortunately, he still hasn't perfected the mixture. Just as in the original Re-Animator, everything and everyone that Dr. West brings back to life turns on the Doctor and tries to kill him. Recognizing this, Dr. Abbott tries to distance himself from his longtime partner and friend. However, he's drawn back into West's madness when a beloved patient, Gloria (Kathleen Kinmont) inches closer to an inevitable death from some unnamed cancer.

Bruce Abbott truly is the Wish.com version of Bill Pullman. Catch him at just the right angle and you might be fooled into thinking he is Bill Pullman. Sadly, time spent watching Abbott reveals none of the talent or charisma that has made Bill Pullman a lasting presence on the big screen. Abbott is a cypher, a wisp of a character pushed and prodded by the plot and lingering desperately in the shadow of Combes' Dr. West. Abbott can't hope to match the performance of Combes whose innate creepiness and haunted eyes were born for horror movie stardom.

Quite sadly however, Combes appears bored in Bride of Re-Animator. Gone is the twinkle of madness in his eyes. Instead, we see Combes pushing through his performance here out of an obligation. Combes isn't completely lacking in appeal, he still has a touch of invention in him but it's clear that he's not nearly as invested in this material as he was in the original. Perhaps he's better suited to being directed by a visionary like Stuart Gordon rather than a mediocre scenarist like Brian Yuzna.

If Yuzna has one talent, he does occasionally find a creepy visual to set his camera upon. The reveal of the titular 'Bride' is not bad as horror movie monster reveals go. Sadly, just calling this movie Bride of Re-Animator invokes comparisons to The Bride of Frankenstein and this movie can't help but pale in the shadow of that visionary work of horror art. The last thing a mediocre horror sequel should want to do is evoke the legend of a far better movie and Bride of Re-Animator recalling Bride of Frankenstein is the thesis statement on not inviting such comparisons.

I will say this of Brian Yuzna, he does try to evoke some of Stuart Gordon's twisted dark sense of humor. For instance, he brings back the most shocking and exciting character from the original Re-Animator to great comic effect. The murderous Dr. Hill, played by David Gale, or rather just his head, is back for Bride of Re-Animator and the sight of Dr. Hill remains a striking bit of body horror. His fate in Bride of Re-Animator is the single funniest moment in the movie, an example of what might have been if Bride of Re-Animator were more than just an attempt to capitalize on the cult popularity of the original.

This article on 1991's Bride of Re-Animator is the latest serialized piece from my ongoing book project Horror in the 90s. I am watching every theatrically released horror movie, and selected non-theatrical releases, from the 1990s to create a compendium of the horror genre from 1990 through 1999. It's a big project and one that I cannot complete on my own. If you'd like to help me bring Horror in the 90s to life you can do so by liking and sharing this review. You can further support this project by making a monthly pledge or by leaving a one-time tip here on Vocal. Anyone who makes a financial donation will get a credit in the book.