Violence/Gore: While most of it is just goofy enough to prevent gorehounds from taking it too seriously, there is plenty of over-the-top blood, guts, re-animated assembled corpses and strange new creatures to make any mainstream moviegoer lose their lunch. Watch out for the orgy of hybrids at the end and the stunning disintegration of the Bride. Oh, and the three-legged dog - another classic.

Sex/Nudity: Cain and his new girlfriend roll in the sheets once, but it’s very demure. And unless watching Kathleen Kinmont topless as either a terminal pasty-skinned patient or a bloody, patched-up corpse is your idea of a good time, you’ll just have to be satisfied with green goo and gore galore.

Best Line: What else? “My God, they’re using tools!”

Score:

As a big fan of the original RE-ANIMATOR, I was happy with the follow-up way back when, but I think it suffers a bit with age. Granted, it does have most of the hallmarks of a potentially good sequel: pick up the threads where you left off, reunite as much of the original cast as possible, and carry the story forward in some sort of logical progression. BRIDE manages to do all of that - just. But the results fall short.

Months after the massacre that didn’t quite finish off Dr. Hill’s head and West (depending on what cut of the first movie you watch), West and Cain are working in Peru, where West has discovered a way to enhance his reagent. Put simply, rather than simply bringing the dead back to life, he can now re-animate separate pieces, assemble them, and create new life. Dr. Frankenstein would be so proud. The two mad scientists then head home, take up their old Miskatonic hospital gigs (but just how did they get their jobs back when everyone knows they were the only two survivors - and possibly the instigators - of a major massacre at the same hospital?) and set up house right next to a cemetery. Mmm, you can just smell the upcoming carnage, can’t you?

With a title like that, the sequel had to have some nods to the Frankenstein mythos, and indeed much of this movie plays more like a RE-ANIMATOR version of that old literary/film saga than a follow-up to its own progenitor. West makes lots of grand speeches about the creation of life, leading to his immortal classic: “I will not be shackled by the failures of your God!” Meanwhile, Dan flails around like a lovesick moron, grieving about Meg one minute, falling in love with replacement girlfriend Francesca the next and then succumbing to despair once again. You have to wonder why West keeps the milquetoast around when there’s so much amoral work to be done, but more on that later. Oh yes, and Dr. Hill rears his ugly…well you know…again.

Of the newcomers to the saga, Claude Earl Jones plays his police detective Chapham like a real idiot, grimacing through every line and offering his badge with all the grace of a…thing that doesn’t have any grace. As for Mel Stewart as Dr. Graves, he walks through his role in a constant state of childish bemusement, as if he’s stoned out of his mind and still can’t believe he’s in this movie. As for David Gale’s Hill, director Brian Yuzna has admitted Hill was not originally part of this sequel, but when Gale asked what sort of part they had for him, they evidently scrambled to shoehorn the ol’ severed head in… and it shows. Hill plays no direct role, his bat-wing retro-fit is extremely silly, and his final confrontation with West has none of the gravitas of their previous encounters. He’s quite simply wasted.

Naturally, there’s nothing negative you can say about Jeffrey Combs and his portrayal of Herbert West, and his relationship with Bruce Abbott’s Dan Cain picks up right where they left off. He still employs his trademark tilt of the head when West suddenly comes up with another truly grotesque idea for an experiment, and you can’t help but smile every time he does it. In fact, there’s also a subtle undercurrent here. West seems to have grown even more dependent on Cain and reluctant to let him go, and spends much of this movie’s running time either consoling Cain during one of several nervous breakdowns or begging him to continue “the work” with him. He even goes so far as to fashion their Frankensteinian creation around Meg’s heart (one of many Miskatonic Massacre relics that West finds stored at the hospital). But the question is: Why does he go to such extraordinary lengths to keep Dan on the hook? The fact that West reacts with barely disguised jealousy when Francesca enters the picture suggests he might almost harbor some sense of genuine affection for Dan. I’m not suggesting anything prurient, just that Dan may be the only person on Earth that West has grown to truly care about. Or is he just a pawn in West’s game? We may never know.

It all leads to a gorefest climax and a very rushed ending. The final shots of Hill in the crypt and Meg’s heart on the table also feel amateur and hurried.

One last thing: Whatever you do, don’t buy the lame-ass vanilla edition currently gracing store shelves. You might have to dig deeper to find this early DVD treasure, but if you care about the movie at all, you’ll want the double-sided special edition. Just read on to find out why…

DVD Extras: A joy for any RE-ANIMATOR fan, although not nearly as polished as the extras on the original RE-ANIMATOR special edition. This one comes with both R-rated and unrated cuts of the film. Why would you want to watch an R-rated edit? Simple: That’s the one with the audio commentary, but don’t ask me why (the liner notes offer a thin explanation). Actually, there are two commentary tracks, but the real fun can be had with the one pairing Combs and Abbott as they watch the movie with barely disguised disdain at certain points. There’s a behind-the-scenes featurette composed of raw backstage footage, an assembly of raw material for the infamous jettisoned opening sequence that would have picked up the moment the first film left off, with Dan re-animating Meg (here played by a far less appealing actress), as well as a short still gallery and commentary on the missing carnival/Dr. Hill’s head opening. Some stills and a trailer round out the extras.

ATB