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Beyond Re-Animator
Beyond Re-Animator is a 2003 Spanish-American horror film directed by Brian Yuzna and starring Jeffrey Combs, Jason Barry, Elsa Pataky, Simón Andreu and Santiago Segura. It is the third and final installment in the Re-Animator film series.
An international co-production of Spain and the United States, Beyond Re-Animator premiered on the Sci-Fi Channel, though it was produced independently and acquired by the channel only as a distributor; this showing was cut to a TV-PG rating. The film received a limited theatrical run in the U.S. and was assigned an R rating, and a slightly longer unrated cut was released on home media in some countries.
For the past thirteen years, Dr. Herbert West has been serving a prison sentence due to a murder at the hands of one of his zombies. With what scant supplies he has on hand in the prison medical center, Dr. West has been capable of performing only extremely basic experiments on rats. However, his lack of supplies does not prevent him from uncovering a key element in his re-animation process. Dr. West has discovered "NPE" (Nano-Plasmic Energy), an energy that can be extracted from the brain of a living organism through an electrocution-like process, to be stored in a capsule resembling a small light bulb. The capsule can then be connected to a corpse and used in conjunction with West's previously developed reagent to restore the former dead to a lifelike state. The NPE prevents the degeneration seen in previous instances, where the reanimated are nothing more than mindless zombies. Used together with the re-agent, reanimated corpses regain their skills, memories, and motor functions and nearly fully resemble normal humans.
When a young doctor named Howard Phillips comes to work at the prison, West is assigned to assist the new doctor. Due to Phillips' interest in Dr. West's research, West is able to attain the supplies and tools needed to bring his experiments to the next level. It is revealed that Phillips is the younger brother of the teenage girl who was killed by West's zombie (he is shown watching West being taken away by the cops) and came to the prison for the explicit purpose of working with him. Despite his interest, Phillips still maintains an ethical reluctance to allow West's research to full completion. In the meantime, journalist Laura Olney, covering a story for her newspaper at the prison, meets and begins an affair with Dr. Phillips, and they fall in love. This new romance only temporarily postpones West's experiment, however. After the warden of the prison, also infatuated with Laura, attempts to seduce Laura himself, she resists and he angrily kills her.
Crushed by Laura's death, Dr. Phillips succumbs to Dr. West's wishes and his experiments are allowed to literally take on new life. West & Phillips revive Laura with the NPE, although it is quickly seen that the dangerous side effects of West's past work are still present with the NPE. Eventually, the warden of the prison uncovers West's experiments and moves to put an end to them, but he is killed by West, and subsequently re-animated. West uses the NPE from a prisoner's pet rat, causing some unexpected side effects in the warden's behavior. It quickly manifests itself as the prison descends into utter chaos as a riot breaks out, with vials of the reagent circulating through the population. Soon, it is unclear who is dead, who is alive, and who has been exposed to the agent.
When the chaos finally settles from the bloody prison riot, West escapes captivity before the guards appear by stealing Phillips' I.D. when he comes across Phillips weeping over Laura's decapitated body. As police and authorities take control of the prison, Phillips is dragged away as he and Laura's head start laughing. Herbert West is shown putting on his glasses outside the prison and disappears into the night to continue his research. During the end credits a comical rat versus zombie severed-penis boxing matching is seen.
Brian Yuzna following the release of Bride of Re-Animator had wanted to continue the franchise and upon being approached 10 years later by Spanish company Filmax in setting up their horror film production arm Fantastic Factory the opportunity presented itself for a third Re-Animator to be produced. As Yuzna had exhausted the source material of the original H. P. Lovecraft short story Herbert West–Reanimator, he approached writer John Penney, with whom he had collaborated on Return of the Living Dead 3, for potential ideas for continuation. While Penney's treatment ultimately wasn't used, the concept of Herbert West now serving a prison sentence became the basis for what would become Beyond Re-Animator. The initial draft of the film would've brought back Bruce Abbott's Dan Cain who turned state's evidence against West and is now a successful, albeit vice ridden, transplant surgeon who is using what remains of West's re-animation serum in his surgical procedures and is forced by a politically ambitious district attorney to use the re-animation serum on a serial killer's recently deceased victim in order to catch them. Due to the amount of time that had passed between films as well as the impossibility of Spain convincingly doubling for the United States, Yuzna decided to scale back the film to be more of a confined prison movie as well as Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West returning to the role, Jason Barry was brought in to play a more youthful foil for West.
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 55% based on 11 critics, with an average rating of 5.30/10 AllMovie gave the film a mixed review, calling it "almost a remake of the original." Jonathan Holland of Variety writes that the film is "sometimes shocking but rarely scary" and "calculated to appeal only to hardcore gore hounds." In a mixed review, Patrick Naugle of DVD Verdict called it "somewhat of a letdown" but "worth at least one viewing". Writing for Bloody Disgusting, Brad Miska rates the film 2.5/5 stars and called it "a fun movie, but nothing special."
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Beyond Re-Animator
Beyond Re-Animator is a 2003 Spanish-American horror film directed by Brian Yuzna and starring Jeffrey Combs, Jason Barry, Elsa Pataky, Simón Andreu and Santiago Segura. It is the third and final installment in the Re-Animator film series.
An international co-production of Spain and the United States, Beyond Re-Animator premiered on the Sci-Fi Channel, though it was produced independently and acquired by the channel only as a distributor; this showing was cut to a TV-PG rating. The film received a limited theatrical run in the U.S. and was assigned an R rating, and a slightly longer unrated cut was released on home media in some countries.
For the past thirteen years, Dr. Herbert West has been serving a prison sentence due to a murder at the hands of one of his zombies. With what scant supplies he has on hand in the prison medical center, Dr. West has been capable of performing only extremely basic experiments on rats. However, his lack of supplies does not prevent him from uncovering a key element in his re-animation process. Dr. West has discovered "NPE" (Nano-Plasmic Energy), an energy that can be extracted from the brain of a living organism through an electrocution-like process, to be stored in a capsule resembling a small light bulb. The capsule can then be connected to a corpse and used in conjunction with West's previously developed reagent to restore the former dead to a lifelike state. The NPE prevents the degeneration seen in previous instances, where the reanimated are nothing more than mindless zombies. Used together with the re-agent, reanimated corpses regain their skills, memories, and motor functions and nearly fully resemble normal humans.
When a young doctor named Howard Phillips comes to work at the prison, West is assigned to assist the new doctor. Due to Phillips' interest in Dr. West's research, West is able to attain the supplies and tools needed to bring his experiments to the next level. It is revealed that Phillips is the younger brother of the teenage girl who was killed by West's zombie (he is shown watching West being taken away by the cops) and came to the prison for the explicit purpose of working with him. Despite his interest, Phillips still maintains an ethical reluctance to allow West's research to full completion. In the meantime, journalist Laura Olney, covering a story for her newspaper at the prison, meets and begins an affair with Dr. Phillips, and they fall in love. This new romance only temporarily postpones West's experiment, however. After the warden of the prison, also infatuated with Laura, attempts to seduce Laura himself, she resists and he angrily kills her.
Crushed by Laura's death, Dr. Phillips succumbs to Dr. West's wishes and his experiments are allowed to literally take on new life. West & Phillips revive Laura with the NPE, although it is quickly seen that the dangerous side effects of West's past work are still present with the NPE. Eventually, the warden of the prison uncovers West's experiments and moves to put an end to them, but he is killed by West, and subsequently re-animated. West uses the NPE from a prisoner's pet rat, causing some unexpected side effects in the warden's behavior. It quickly manifests itself as the prison descends into utter chaos as a riot breaks out, with vials of the reagent circulating through the population. Soon, it is unclear who is dead, who is alive, and who has been exposed to the agent.
When the chaos finally settles from the bloody prison riot, West escapes captivity before the guards appear by stealing Phillips' I.D. when he comes across Phillips weeping over Laura's decapitated body. As police and authorities take control of the prison, Phillips is dragged away as he and Laura's head start laughing. Herbert West is shown putting on his glasses outside the prison and disappears into the night to continue his research. During the end credits a comical rat versus zombie severed-penis boxing matching is seen.
Brian Yuzna following the release of Bride of Re-Animator had wanted to continue the franchise and upon being approached 10 years later by Spanish company Filmax in setting up their horror film production arm Fantastic Factory the opportunity presented itself for a third Re-Animator to be produced. As Yuzna had exhausted the source material of the original H. P. Lovecraft short story Herbert West–Reanimator, he approached writer John Penney, with whom he had collaborated on Return of the Living Dead 3, for potential ideas for continuation. While Penney's treatment ultimately wasn't used, the concept of Herbert West now serving a prison sentence became the basis for what would become Beyond Re-Animator. The initial draft of the film would've brought back Bruce Abbott's Dan Cain who turned state's evidence against West and is now a successful, albeit vice ridden, transplant surgeon who is using what remains of West's re-animation serum in his surgical procedures and is forced by a politically ambitious district attorney to use the re-animation serum on a serial killer's recently deceased victim in order to catch them. Due to the amount of time that had passed between films as well as the impossibility of Spain convincingly doubling for the United States, Yuzna decided to scale back the film to be more of a confined prison movie as well as Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West returning to the role, Jason Barry was brought in to play a more youthful foil for West.
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 55% based on 11 critics, with an average rating of 5.30/10 AllMovie gave the film a mixed review, calling it "almost a remake of the original." Jonathan Holland of Variety writes that the film is "sometimes shocking but rarely scary" and "calculated to appeal only to hardcore gore hounds." In a mixed review, Patrick Naugle of DVD Verdict called it "somewhat of a letdown" but "worth at least one viewing". Writing for Bloody Disgusting, Brad Miska rates the film 2.5/5 stars and called it "a fun movie, but nothing special."