Should Stay Dead

Campy pulp? Or pulpy camp? Whatever you'd call it, I recently decided to watch the modern(ish) cult classic Re-Animator. I did so really for one reason only, star Jeffrey Combs.

If you don't know this actor by name, you should. He is one of the best character actors working today. He's shown up in tons of television series and movies. Geeks like me arguably know him best for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, on which he played the recurring characters of both Brunt and Weyoun. The man just has a gift for playing the outrageous in an absolutely convincing and truthful way. I figured that even if Re-Animator was a bad movie, he'd be good in it, and that would probably make it worth something.

The problem is, he is pretty good in it. He plays it absolutely straight as an arrow, and even though at this earlier point in his career, he doesn't show skills quite as deep as what he would develop, he's very convincing. But no one and nothing else around him is. His appearances in things like The 4400, The Frighteners, and yes, Star Trek, work in part because everyone else around him is also taking it seriously.

Re-Animator is just a farce. It's loaded with laughable amounts of cheaply realized gore, hammy overacting, and insane concepts that can't help but be taken as jokes. Somewhere along the line, I just couldn't take it anymore. Maybe it was watching people try to writhe around with a small lump of black fur as though it were an angry zombified cat. Or maybe it was watching a revived body carry around its own decapitated head, Halloween costume-style (and about that expertly made, too).

Re-Animator isn't a scary movie, it's a comedy. But it doesn't really feel like an intentional comedy, either. There's certainly nothing in it to make you laugh; it only induces the sort of groans you get from a second-rate comedian telling lousy puns.

I can only say in the movie's favor that it is a blissfully short 88 minutes, and that yes, Jeffrey Combs "had it" even then. But there's no reason to watch this when he's done so much better work since then. I rate Re-Animator a D-.