At its base, the movie is a surreal comedy about medical school, growing out of a doctor's sense of helplessness about death. Hill, instructing his class in the techniques of brain surgery, pulls the scalp from a cadaver and says, with a grin, that it's 'very much like peeling a large orange' if the seed of 'Re-Animator's' comedy lies in a reckless disregard for human dignity, it stems from a sense of alienation that young doctors learn very quickly. The perspective of 'Re-Animator' is that such things are funny, a view that's grounded in the story. West is a figure of fun, but Combs doesn't spoof him - in West's own mind, there's nothing funny about someone who marches around the morgue lifting shrouds and deadpans, 'Not fresh enough!' Beady-eyed, his face hard, almost lacquered, Combs makes West into a brittle, slightly fey psychotic in the Anthony Perkins mold. Throughout, director Stuart Gordon dances on the edge of parody but never crosses it, and the actors follow his lead nicely. 'Re-Animator,' on the other hand, while it never transcends the limitations of its genre, offers the more substantial pleasure of an expert pastiche. A movie like 'Friday the 13th' offers the dubious joys of pornography - you simply wait for the hacking and hewing, and look, there it is. What follows? Stabbing (with a brain surgeon's bone saw), beating (head against wall), maiming (with an ax), decapitation (with a shovel), strangulation (by an intestine that takes on a life of its own), but all done with a verve that lifts 'Re-Animator' out of the dour realm of shock effects. Till then (and indeed, afterward) their struggle creates a Faustian vortex, sucking in West's roommate, Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott) Cain's girlfriend, Megan (Barbara Crampton) and Megan's father, the med school dean (Robert Sampson). 'Plagiarist!' spits West, and soon enough, the plagiarist gets his. Hill (David Gale), wants the secret of reanimation for himself. Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) is a medical student with a Big Idea - he's come up with a chemical re-agent, a fluorescent green liquid, that can restore the dead to life. Not since the heyday of Roger Corman, perhaps, have filmmakers had so much fun with an exploitation movie.

Lovecraft, 'Re-Animator's' gore is exceeded only by its wit.

Re animator hp lovecraft