Bride of Re-Animator

Bride of Re-Animator is a 1990 American horror film directed by Brian Yuzna, and written by Yuzna, Rick Fry, and Woody Keith. It is a sequel to the 1985 film Re-Animator and based loosely on the story Herbert West–Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft. The movie is set in Arkham, Massachusetts, the fictional town created by Lovecraft, and follows the story of two medical students, Dr. Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) and Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott), as they continue their experiments with the reanimation of dead tissue.

The opening scene of the movie opens on a battlefield, where Dr. West and Dr. Cain are working to reanimate dead soldiers using their experimental serum. However, the experiment goes horribly wrong, and one of the reanimated soldiers goes on a rampage, killing everyone in sight. This scene sets the tone for the rest of the movie, and establishes that Dr. West's experiments are not always successful, and often have deadly consequences.

The movie then cuts to sometime later, when Dr. West and Dr. Cain are working as doctors at a local hospital. They are secretly continuing their experiments with the serum, using body parts from the hospital morgue. However, their experiments are discovered by the hospital administrator, Dr. Graves (Mel Stewart), who orders them to stop. Undeterred, Dr. West and Dr. Cain continue their experiments in secret, creating a reanimated human heart and a dog with a human leg.

Their experiments take a turn for the worse when Herbert becomes obsessed with creating a bride for the reanimated heart. He steals body parts from the hospital's morgue and creates a female creature whom he names Gloria. However, she turns out to be unstable and violently attacks and kills many people. Throughout the movie, Dr. West and Dr. Cain's relationship is strained as Dan Cain has become deeply guilt-ridden over his part in the experiment.

The movie includes numerous horror-themed elements such as gruesome gore effects, disturbing imagery, and the chaotic, oftentimes deranged behavior of West and Cain. The character Herbert West is particularly eccentric and possesses a twisted sense of humor that often makes light of the gruesome experiments he is performing. The film's pacing is somewhat slow and methodical, building tension by not showing the entirety of the abominations created by Dr. West until later in the film.

Overall, Bride of Re-Animator is a competent if conventional horror film, but it is likely to be enjoyed by fans of the original Re-Animator who enjoy the franchise's mix of dark humor and graphic gore. There are some particularly intense scenes and visceral effects that may be too much for some viewers but will undoubtedly delight others. Like its predecessor, Bride of Re-Animator features charismatic performances from Combs and Abbott, who infuse their characters with both pathos and an underlying sense of danger.