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What’s up Sorry Staters?
How’s everyone doing? I’m having a pretty nice start to my October. Many welcome distractions from all the fucked up craziness going on in the world. At least there are positive things to look forward to. Very excited for our friends in Golpe to return and play Raleigh in a couple weeks. Rigorous Institution plays here the day before as well. Hell yeah.
I’ve been trying my best to get into the October spirit like I always do. I began decorating the store with all kinds of spiders, webs, bats, skeletons, and pumpkins. Still more work to be done, but it’s looking pretty spoopy. So yeah, I’ve been watching a lot of movies. As I mentioned last week, there’s a local theater here in Raleigh that does cool screenings of horror movies in October. I’ve been seeing movies in the theater a lot lately, which is rad. But man, I went to go see the latest David Cronenberg movie The Shrouds the other day… do people like this movie? What a piece of shit. Sorry to be harsh. And that’s coming from someone who loves Cronenberg movies. I felt like the main actor reminded me of Tommy Wiseau in The Room. Superfluous, meandering shots of this half-naked old man, which evolved into what came across like an excuse for this guy to insist on these overindulgent, creepy, cringey love-making scenes with younger actresses. Stilted, bad dialogue. No plot point of the movie mattered or contributed to the ending. I sat there watching the credits being like, “What the fuck did I just watch?” Yikes.
Anyway, enough complaining about that. Last night I went to see Bride Of Re-Animator. While I’ve seen the original Re-Animator and its Lovecraftian sister movie From Beyond many times, it had been several years since I’d watched the sequel. It’s interesting that Re-Animator came out in 1985, and the concept wasn’t revisited until this film in 1990. Jeffrey Combs returns as the iconic Dr. Herbert West, leaning even more heavily into an exaggerated portrayal of the character with an awesome performance. His delivery on all of his quippy, deadpan one-liners is excellent. The whole theater would erupt with laughter in perfect timing for each of his beats; it was great.
The effects in the original Re-Animator are killer—undead walking, talking severed heads and all that. But Bride Of Re-Animator brings the fantastical, splatter-tastic gruesomeness to the next level. What I had forgotten is that all the gore effects in Bride were the work of Screaming Mad George. What a fuckin’ legend. I’m a huge fan. My initial exposure to Screaming Mad George’s special FX work was when I first saw the Nightmare On Elm Street sequels that he worked on. He’s worked on tons of big movies, but another sleeper one I’ll mention is his work on Society, just a gem of hilarious, yet sickening body horror. But when I was younger and watching his work in these 80s horror flicks, this was loooong before I made the connection to the punk world, which is that Screaming Mad George was the singer of late 70s NY punk legends The Mad. The spooning of the eyeball was a small hint of what was to come.
A brief explanation of the movie, for those unfamiliar: Dr. Herbert West and Dr. Dan Cain are performing experimental research in the basement of their home, a former mortuary. West is secretly stealing severed body parts from the hospital where they both work. With these severed body parts, West and Cain attempt to assemble a super-human of sorts, stitching these limbs together… the legs of a dancer, the face of a beautiful woman who died tragically young of cancer, and most importantly, the heart of Cain’s fiancée who passed away. They plan to use West’s same glowing re-animating agent from the first movie, but rather than reawaken the dead, they will use it to give life to a new creature altogether. Meanwhile, the severed head of the villainous Dr. Hill is accidentally re-animated and seeks vengeance! You know, that old thing we’ve seen time after time (*wink*wink, just kidding).
It’s a wild ride. The blending of the levity of humor alongside the gory gruesomeness strikes a perfect balance, and probably makes it easier for casual viewers to stomach. Screaming Mad George’s FX work on the zombie bride, as well as all the other severed limbs and creatures, is just incredible. A grotesque yet beautiful visual spectacle. And especially impressive knowing all the work is practical effects. I’m such a nerd for that kinda stuff. Not to mention that this screening was a 4K remastered print for the big screen. In theory, I might think I would have problems with the whole 4K thing, worrying it might look too digital or something. In fact, it still looked organic like the old movie, just crisper, clearer, and more vivid.
Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for this week. Tune in next week to read me blab about more spooky horror goodness. As always, thanks for reading.
‘Til next week,
-Jeff