Herbert West Reanimator is generally considered to be seminal horror author H.P. Lovecrafts least inspired work: ironic, given that its the story he most cribbed from other people. Lovecraft wrote the short story as a serial, published in the first six issues of a friends amateur magazine. By his own admission, it was a parody of Shelleys Frankenstein, his own character a driven, intense and arrogant young doctor who creates a reagent that can reanimate dead flesh. The story is one of the first iterations in fiction of the zombie as we know it today, a dead body brought back to lurching, primitive, violent life by science. The cinematic Herbert West, brilliantly portrayed by the horrendously underrated Jeffrey Combs, is pretty much the letter and the spirit of Lovecrafts West, but transposed from a po-faced (no pun intended) short story to a splatterfest with a surreal, almost gonzo affect to it. Combs presents the character as completely deadpan, never once playing up to the increasingly ludicrous antics occurring around him. If West is Victor Frankenstein without any ethics or moral centre whatsoever, then Re-Animator is Frankenstein without any religious or spiritual heart to it whatsoever: wilfully gory, unpretentiously upsetting and (deliberately) very, very funny. Re-Animator was followed by Bride Of Re-Animator in 1990 and Beyond Re-Animator in 2003. Whats notable in each film is that Dr. Herbert West isnt the villain, but rather a completely disinterested protagonist. His only inclination is the obsessive desire to continue and perfect his research. Every action he takes is in service of that need, and no other: no matter who dies, who gets reanimated, and who, as a result, gets murdered right in the face. Hes also bloody indestructible, apparently: both the first two films end with West trapped with his undead creations, about to be ripped to pieces, but miraculously perfectly fine come the beginning of the next instalment. The third movies climax sees him, having escaped the carnage, surveying it bleakly before walking away to continue his great work elsewhere. Its fitting nothing that happens in any of the Re-Animator movies affects West emotionally or mentally, either.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
