10 Movies That Completely Reinvent The Books They’re Based On

HP Lovecraft’s surreal, dark tales have secured him a place as one of the grandfathers of modern horror. His themes, such as the occult, dark magic, forbidden knowledge, and the terrifying dangers of modern science, continue to inform the genre, not least through a swath of modern adaptations, including some of the best-loved horror movies ever to raise a scream.

But the zaniest, loosest and best fun of them all has to be Stuart Gordon's deliriously inventive 1985 masterpiece Re-Animator, one of the most chaotic and hair-raising zombie splatterfests in horror history. A reimagining of Herbert West - Reanimator, a six part short story serialised in 1922, Gordon's movie not only moves Lovecraft's tale to a modern setting, it adds a healthy dose of slapstick and laughs to the bloodshed and body horror to boot.

Based on the first two parts of the original story, Re-Animator turns Lovecraft up to eleven. It is an unmissable masterpiece of camp comedy at the same time that it's a stone cold masterpiece of schlock horror.