Bride of Re-Animator Movie Review

It says "H.P. Lovecraft's" above the title, but rest assured, the grand master of the weird tale never wrote a book by the name of Bride of Re-Animator.

This update/retelling of the Frankenstein story is every bit as cheesy as the original tale, but much of the geeky humor that made the original Re-Animator such a classic is sorely lacking here. The film is just a continuation of the story of Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) as he works on his green serum that can reanimate dead tissue. Naturally, as the body count rises, it shrinks in lockstep.

The story, to earn its title, focuses on the resurrection of the ex-girlfriend of Herbert's roommate, Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott) -- though, er, doesn't that make it Bride of Re-Animator's Roommate? I guess that doesn't roll off the tongue. Of course, the experiment doesn't go so smashingly (when has any Frankenstein story gone well?) and cops and doctors all end up in a gore-infused mass of flesh. Dr. Hill's disembodied head makes a repeat performance here as well, to excellent effect, as he ends up with a pair of bat wings attached to his ears.

Silly, sure, and though it's totally oozing blood, it's not particularly scary. It's watchable, espcecially when Fabiana Udenio (you know her as the exchange student from Summer School) is on camera, proving herself a truly underrated scream queen.