Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
This one sounds like loads of nasty fun, and I’m hoping it plays this summer at FantAsia. In the meantime, check out these blissed-out reactions to the screening:
Hey Harry,
Long time reader, first time yadda yadda yadda. Friday night was the U.S Premiere of Beyond Re-Animator at the 12th Annual Philadelphia Fim Festival and guess who was there? Brian Yuzna and Jeffrey Combs! They introduced the film and had a Q & A afterwards.
First, lets talk about the movie. It was AWESOME! I won't spoil anything, but the gore FXs (by Screaming Mad George) and the digital FXs were top notch. Even though the movie was only made for 3 million dollars the CGI was believable and inventive. Combs as West is amazing as well. There are many winks that he gives to the audience in reference to the first one, but what is good about Beyond is that you didn't have to see the first 2 to get it. The movie stands on its own and is almost as good as the first, almost. What impressed me most besides the digital FXs was the lighting. The lighting also made it look more expensive than it was and it gave it a comic book style to it. The over all tone reminded me of EC Comic's Tales from the Crypt. Here's something funny about the print that we saw. Yuzna said that only one print has been made so far and it was for the cast and crew screening. And because it was shot on Spain that print had Spanish subtitles on it. The cast and crew print was flown to Philly and that's what we saw so it made the movie more unintentionally funny seeing Spanish words below the actors.
After the screening Yuzna and Combs stuck around to answer some questions. Yuzna said that the digital FXs were done "in house" by Fantastic Factory (the Spanish company that made it and Yuzna is apart of). He also said that he is trying to make Fantastic Factory the new Hammer and with films like Beyond Re-Animator and Dagon he just might do it. Someone asked what Stuart Gordon thought of the sequels and Combs said that Gordon gave his blessing, but feels alittle weird seeing someone else doing his idea. Combs is a really funny guy, but Yuzna looks like he's all business. Yuzna also said that its difficult making a film for an audience who thinks horror films started with Scream (that got a laugh out of everyone). And of course the question of would they do another Re-Animator came up and Combs said yes, if the story was right.Yuzna quickly shot in the comment of how Gordon would like to do House of the Re-Animator, so you never know.
I also saw the East Coast Premiere of Hideo Nakata's Dark Water on Sunday night. He is a master of suspense. I know that sounds like a cliche, but it is true. The guy had me squirming in my seat. After the screening someone said, "Only the Japanese could make water scary", and i would have to agree. I also appreciate how Nakata spends such a long time developing his characters as 3 dimensional people. It made the suspenseful parts at the end even better. Now, it is a slow film so be warned, but the pay off is well worth it.
Well, i hope you put this up. If you do i'll send you more reviews from the 12th Annual Philly Film Festival. Tonight i'm seeing Alex di la Iglesia's Mutant Action, Tuesday Miike's Graveyard of Honor and next week The Eye. If this goes up call me Motorized Instinct.
Thanks, “Motorized Instinct.” That’s nowhere near as strange as the fake name this next guy gives. I mean, “Cole Dennis”? Pshaw!! Be careful, though... lots of spoilers in this one...
Hey, Harry.
Name's Cole Dennis. I just saw the second ever screening of "Beyond Re-Animator" (1st North American one) tonight and holy shit was it awesome. It played at the Philadelphia Film Festival as part of its "Danger After Dark" program (obviously the best part of the whole festival).
So my friend and I get there not even really expecting to see it but make it with plenty of time. As we wind down the minutes it gets to the time when the film's about to start, and I'm out in the lobby going in from the men's room when I hear something. "First I'll introduce you..." I hear, and glance over to see the promoter talking to someone I assumed was director/producer/horror god (in my opinion at least) Bryan Yuzna (it was) because standing right next to him was Jeffrey FUCKING Combs. I scurry back inside dazed and stumbling over my own feet. They are shortly introduced and the mostly surprised crowd goes apeshit. They introduce it all, etc. etc., and explain that this was the finished copy shown to the crew in Spain (where Yuzna lives and runs Fantastic Factory) so the entire thing has Spanish subtitles on it. Also, this is the only time this movie has been shown to an audience besides in Brussels. Now, I'm all about horror in pretty much all shapes and forms (yeah I really really suck, but only as a slight hobby) so I'm still high off this thing and grinning ear to ear but I'll try to give you a brief synopsis and mix it with some of the shit a delighted Yuzna and overly energetic Combs happily explained about it afterwards, during an impromptu Q&A.
The movie begins with two young boys in a tent outside Boy A's house. Boy A is telling a scary story to Boy B (I'm not sure if they were brothers but assumedly just friends) about a cemetary next door and a crazy guy found nearby eating body parts (or something). It's also mentioned somehow that one of the boys heard that when you die, the last thing you see is imprinted on the back of your retina. Meanwhile, Boy A's older, attractive sister is inside, pouring herself a glass of milk, and something is watching her through the window. She hears a noise and starts "investigating," a little frightened. The two boys go back inside the house. Afterwards, Combs and Yuzna explained they had to make the movie appealing to a wider audience, the kind that now seems to think horror movies started with "Scream." They said they feared throwing off hardcore fans with this kind of beginning, but thought that if they could more than make up for it later (THEY DID), fans wouldn't be too disappointed. Anyway, the sister turns around a corner and bumps into the boys. She jumps, but reacts with relief, tickling her younger brother and playing around. Suddenly a dark figure turns around the corner. It's a walking corpse, sans jaw, its tongue gruesomely waggling in the air (awesome, awesome stuff...Screaming Mad George did make-up effects). The three scream, the corpse picks up the sister, choking her, and bashes her head against the wall. She collapses, dying. While her brother is crying, the cops rush in. The corpse picks up the milk and pours it over its tongue (oh god the movie is already looking good). The police shoot it, it dies. The kid watches his sister dies and we see his reflection in her eye as the last thing she sees. Cut to: outside. Dr Herbert West (Combs) is pushed into the back of a cruiser as the boy watches, heartbroken. West looks at the boy, they share a moment, and West glances at the boy's feet. The boy looks down. While West was being shoved into the car he dropped a glowing green hypodermic needle. The boy picks it up, and the cruiser drives away.
Cut to opening credits:
JEFFREY COMBS IN
A BRYAN YUZNA FILM
The credits roll over the traditional "Re-Animator" Gray's Anatomy style opening credits, but it's even more cool looking and twisted this time (Yuzna said it was done by a Swedish friend who had done design work on past films, to make a long story short). Really awesome stuff.
Cut to: 13 Years Later
West is in prison, where he is allowed to be the doctor, even though they really don't even have the most basic in First Aid. A new doctor arrives, and that same day a young, attractive reporter is touring the facilities for an article. The new doctor, whose name is Howard, could have gone anywhere but chose the prison for unknown reasons. He meets West and it is discovered very shortly that he is, of course, the young boy who watched his sister die. He wanted to bring his sister back to life that night more than anything, and he knew that West has that ability. It has been his lifelong dedication to work with West, and he gives the good Doc the long lost needle. A very familiar series of events unfolds during which a prisoner has a heart attack, and West decides to see if the chemical(s) is/are still effective. The fluid is injected into the top of the spinal cord, but of course nothing happens. The two doctors turn their backs to the body and discuss their reactions, while of course the corpse is rising in the background. Pretty soon the re-animated prisoner is up, attacking a guard, and experiencing all those familiar side effects. The warden throws the guy in solitary as West explains his heart rate just went way up, causing him to attack. West plans with Howard to get all the necessary ingredients to make the re-animation mixture.
Pretty soon we get alot of expostion: Howard developing a relationship with sexy reporter girl (in another movie it would be described as very poorly written romance; here it's just necessary for the gory mind fucks the filmmakers have planned for us later on), West re-discovering his obsession,. Jeffrey Combs throwing out awesome one-liners whenever he can, the warden being a general evil asshole (what would you expect in a prison movie, especially this one?), and the reporter girl hinting she's working on a new story.
The new story is of course Dr. West, and while she really does seem to be in love with Howard (does it matter? no), she also seems to be slutting it up just a little. She plays her cards until she can get into see the re-animated prisoner in solitary. Meanwhile, we get to West's newest experimentation/discovery. One of the cooler parts of this movie. It seems Dr. West has always been intrigued to find out why the re-animated bodies aren't quite the same, and he has found a way through simple electrocution to sap the essence of life out of someone. I forget the term used, but basically the movie finds a way to scientifically classify what would typically be called spirit or soul or something. West describes it as the thing that tells the nerves how to work, and work it does (on a test subject in the form of a rat). He wants to inject a rat's soul into the prisoner they re-animated, but Howard argues with him. West, being a man of science, doesn't understand why it would be any different from one species to the next. Back in the solitary section of the prison, the warden has discovered what the reporter is up to, and is royally pissed. Right about then hell slowly starts to break loose.
The second half (roughly) of the movie is where most of the fun happens. Brief run through: a prison riot, mass re-animation, decapitation, a fight with a flying torso, fucked up limb action (oh, how they bend in this movie!), brutal castration, breast biting, a topless nurse, lots of electrocution, and much more. We get to see how Dr. West's alleged cure to the side effects of re-animation has even worse side effects of its own ("It was just a theory."); we get to see really, really awesome effects for a movie that is almost definitely going to be released straight to video in the states; we even get to see what happens when a junkie tries to shoot up with the magic green stuff.
And if you're still not convinced, I'll tell you what is shown pretty much last in the entire movie: (SPOILER, I GUESS):
A re-animated rat stares down a re-animated severed penis. We watch their shadows as they leap towards each other and FIGHT. Glorious. Simply awe-inspiring. I really said alot more about this movie then I intended, but let me just say this much: fans of the "Re-Animator" series will almost unanimously love and respect this film.
It's very, very good, and it was definitely worth the wait. Some moments were just really bad, but again: anyone who has seen anything else by these guys or in this series will know what's intentional and what isn't.
Yuzna and Combs are just the nicest guys too, all about the fans. During the Q&A someone mentioned how Combs role in "The Frighteners" was by far the best performance in a Peter Jackson film, and most of the audience tended to agree, and I don't think it was just because he was there. This was the first thing I ever wrote in to this site and it's like 4:00 in the morning so I'm sorry if it seems really ranting and raving, but I was just blown away by this movie.
I mean, it was made in Spain with almost entirely Spanish actors for a budget of 3 million dollars (US). This flick was pure A+ style B movie heaven. Should be hitting dvd in September. Time for sleep.
-Cole Dennis
What does it say about fanboys that they can get really, really overjoyed about a fight between a rat and a reanimated penis? Check this next guy out:
Caught Beyond Re-Animator tonight at the philadelphia film festival.
This was the american debut. Ironicly the original debut here as well. Both Bryan Yuzna and Jeffrey Combs introduced the movie.
Now, I'm new to the franchise, so any hard core fans can start crucifing me at will. The movie was shot and produced entirly in spain using spanish actor and crew. The copy we watched was actually the crew print and funnily enough had spanish subs.
Amazing title sequence. Story pretty simple happening thirteen years after the last one("bride of"?!). Dr. West now in prison continues his experiments, when a young doctor(who saw his sister killed by zombies) moves in and pitch in. Havoc ensues. Disemembered body parts, monster rats, bloody blow jobs. And let us not forget, the world first zomby penis in a duel to the death with the aforementioned rat.
After the movie Bruce and Jeff gave a little Q&A, alot of boring questions about shooting in spain, which I cut off for sake of humanity:
Q - What was the budget?
B - About 3 million dollars. Of course in spain that goes a long way.
Q - What took so long?
J - Only in the last few years had the re-animtor series attained cult status. Ten years ago we couldn't get a budget. Now with the Dvds out and references in American Beauty, thing have changed.
Q - Another one?
B - In the last two, we killed everybody. This time we let them live, so I don't know what that means.
Q - How was it working with spanish actors?
J - Bruce came up with an intersting technique. We dubbed it, but not all of it. That's why she (Laura, I don't know who plays her) only gets an accent after she gets the warden soul.
Q - My penis is more talanted the one you hired.
J + B - All of our penises are more.
Q - Have though of making one about West's childhood?
J - Yes, but then I would be out of a job.
That's it, funny movie, hoping for a great festival. Going to the new Takeshi Mikke tomorrow!
Call Me Shay D. Blue
Thanks, everyone, and enjoy the rest of the fest!
"Moriarty" out.
