Zombies in film: Beyond Re-Animator

"They Thought Prison Would Be The Death Of Him. But For Dr. West, Death Is Only The Beginning."


Film: Beyond Re-Animator
Directed by Brian Yuzna
Written by H.P. Lovecraft and Migel Tejada-Flores
Produced by Castelao Producciones, Fantastic Factory and Filmax

Story: Herbert West is back! This time one of his experiments kills a young woman, only to get at the milk she was drinking? And he gets sent to jail for an undetermined period of time. But the young girls brother grows up to be the worst actor of all time, er... to be a doctor himself! Who volunteers to work at the jail where West is so he and West can continue his research. Of course while West is making some real progress, including a way to bring the "soul" back as well as life itself, all hell is bound to get loose as events unfold until West finally confronts a couple of dismembered zombie inmates and the warden with a rat's soul to finally exscape with no remorse for those who'se life's he ruined and continue his experiments else where.

Zombies: I'm not even sure these creatures can be called zombies. They are re-animated and therefore undead but not much else about them makes for zombies. They seem to just become crazed versions of themselves. As with the first movie there are many types of re-animated corpses in the film. One drug addict seems to avoid becoming a crazed killer by taking the serum while alive, he simply meets a grisly... end? Although this movie clearly states there is no  true end when the re-animator serum is involved. The final type of zombie are those re-animated and then given back a soul. Which seems to just warp their personality, begging the question what if the person was given back their own soul?

Survival Lessons:

• Wear clothes that don't easily rip. You shouldn't have to be told twice ladies!
• Don't let a zombie do special favors for you.
• Don't take a re-animation agent while you are currently animated (alive.)
• Make sure your girlfriend isn't just trying to learn about your partner's experiments.
• Don't try to find out about your boyfriend's partner's strange experiments.
• Lesson from series: Doctors are evil or badass, or sometimes both.

Warnings: The R rated version is rated that for good reason. Children skip this next line. Just to give an example of some of the R rate material in this movie, a re-animated "thing" off a man fights a zombie rat. While hilarious, it is definately not for the youngins.

In the end if this film had stayed more consistant with how each "type" of zombie acted it would have been far more then just a fluff piece. As the case is there are too many inconsistantcies to make the film truely worth watching for the ideas it tries to get across and the questions it asks. Like what would happen if a zombie was given back a soul? The soul of an animal? The soul of another person? The soul of the person that zombie used to be? Very interesting questions but ones to which the answers must be found elsewhere.

Stay vigilant, may the infection never reach you, and those close to you have the resolve to do what is needed should you be so unfortunate, Mike D.