25 Cult Movies You Must See Before You Die
12. Re-Animator
An eighties gore-fest unlike any other eighties gore-fest, Re-Animator's composed production shows through in the finished article. Rather than relying on buckets of fake blood, some game friends and a cheap camera, Stuart Gordon's loose adaptation of the HP Lovecraft short story involved his theatre company rehearsing the film for weeks before shooting.
The end result is a admittedly campy, often silly story of medical student Herbert West, who starts messing with human chemistry and cooks up a serum which can return dead flesh to life. Unsurprisingly, that turns out to be a terrible idea and leads to zombie cats and the ravenous mouths of a dead man's severed head trying to go down own a girl.
It's a slapstick horror movie which is recognisable as part of the schlocky eighties school, but with a far better ratio of good-to-bad performances (Jeffrey Combs is particularly good as Herbert West), and practical effects which just about hold up for modern audiences. A blood-drenched dark comedy with as many laughs as scares. For fans of Shaun Of The Dead etc.