Re-Animator is based on an H.P. Lovecraft tale [Herbert West – The Re-Animator] about a crazy scientist who brings dead bodies back to life with a special serum. Trouble is, they come back violent and ready to kill.
Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) is the inventor who, like horror film scientists from time immemorial, is too batty to realize the consequences of his actions. Romantic leads are Bruce Abbott and Barbara Crampton, latter a looker who, at the pic’s climax, is strapped naked to a lab table as an object of the lusts of a hateful admirer, who by this time literally has lost his head.
Pic has a grisly sense of humor, and sometimes is so gross and over the top the film tips over into a bizarre comedy.