Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) is ejected in disgrace from the University of Zurich. He’s sent to the Miskatonic University in Arkham, where he falls in with brilliant fellow student Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott) and Megan Halsey (Barbara Crampton), the daughter of the Dean. But Herbert was removed from Zurich for impossible experiments. Experiments he wants Dan to help replicate, and that cross the barrier between life and death. In both directions…

Stuart Gordon’s movie has a deserved reputation as a horror classic but what really pops in this excellent re-issue from Second Sight is how funny it is. From Combs’ exhausted ‘Stand aside’ as he wields a bone saw for the first time to the gooiest game of ‘Who’s on First?’ you’ll ever see, the movie is frequently very, very funny. A huge part of that is how seriously everyone takes it, with Crampton and Abbott especially echoing Brad and Janet from Rocky Horror Picture Show in their earnest determination to Be In A Horror Movie.

But Combs made his bones on this movie and you can see exactly why. Laconic and hyper focused, often in the same scene he’s endlessly funny precisely because he doesn’t think he’s funny at all. The genus of that choice is that it makes the horror hit all the harder. There’s an early beat involved Megan’s incredibly doomed cat that manages to be both horrific and oddly, weirdly funny. The third act does the same thing, culminating in a twist so ludicrous and played so straight your one thought is ‘Sure, okay.’

Nothing here is subtle, and the mandatory nudity in that third act plays so weirdly it almost breaks the charm of the rest of it. It doesn’t, and that’s entirely down to the charm of the piece and the performances. A movie where a severed head controls a room full of corpses shouldn’t be jaunty and yet, somehow, it is! Even the closing shot mixes Looney Tunes energy with darkness and leaves the movie on possibly the only ‘OR IS IT?!’ horror ending I’ve liked.

The extras are typically excellent for Second Sight, and I especially liked Re-Animator at 40, a conversation with Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton and Brian Yuzna. It’s a fun, in depth conversation from three titans of the field that explores how the movie was made and how different the industry is now.

Verdict: This is a remarkable edition of a remarkable movie. if you’ve never seen it before, and you love horror and comedy as much as I do, this is a treat. 10/10

Alasdair Stuart