Part 4 of 4 | Laura’s countdown post to Crypticon Minneapolis

One of the most fun and unexpected parts of this series is that my mom, who has never especially liked horror, has ended up watching the last couple of movies with my dad and me, and Dad has even convinced her to join us at Crypticon! 

While I love that she’s joined us, and I’m so excited for her to experience the convention for the first time, I was a little nervous for her to watch our last movie of the series: Re-Animator. It’s easily the bloodiest and goriest of the four, and the prospect of watching an uncomfortably long Barbara Crampton nude scene with my parents might have been scarier than anything else.

But the 1985 H.P. Lovecraft adaptation is a campy classic, and its stars are horror icons (although unfortunately one of them, Jeffrey Combs, had to cancel last-minute and will no longer be attending the convention), so I braced myself with a little liquid courage (the recipe for which you’ll find at the end of this post) and dove in.

In Re-Animator, med student Dan Cain (Bruce Abbott) and his girlfriend Megan Halsey (Barbara Crampton)’s lives are thrown into chaos upon the arrival of a fellow student and Dan’s new roommate, Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs). Herbert’s insistence that his experimental serum will lead to conquering death leads to dire consequences for the characters. 

As I mentioned in the intro, this is the bloodiest and goriest movie of the films I’ve covered for this series. Fortunately, the practical makeup effects are so creative and fun that it makes seeing so much carnage extra entertaining, especially in the final act, where several re-animated corpses attack the heroes in the hospital morgue. I was surprised that while my dad found the gore a little jarring (“I haven’t watched a lot of movies like this since before being with your mom!”), my mom actually got a kick out of it (“It’s so cheesy, which makes it fun!”).

The over-the-top special effects are paired with perfectly over-the-top acting. Bruce Abbott is charming as the hunky, big-hearted, kind of clueless leading man. Jeffrey Combs does an amazing job tempering Herbert West’s infuriating arrogance and single-mindedness with humor. Barbara Crampton is excellent at balancing the 60’s-style scream queen melodrama with warmth and likability. And David Gale as the sinister Dr. Carl Hill is basically a live-action cartoon villain with the ick factor cranked up to eleven. 

I’ve had so much fun showing my parents some of my favorite horror movies these past few months, and Re-Animator was the perfect grand finale. I can’t believe I get to meet one of its stars in just a few days—and now my parents get to nerd out with me!

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Crypti-Cocktail: Re-AniMidori Sour

Directions:

Add cucumber vodka, lemon, and lime juice to a glass tumbler full of ice. Top with Sprite. Pour Midori into a shot syringe (I recommend using a funnel for this) and inject the Midori into your glass. Use the empty syringe to stir everything together. If you don’t want to buy the shot syringes, you can add the Midori with everything else at the beginning and stir before adding the Sprite, but come on…it’s a Re-Animator-themed cocktail. You’re going to want the syringe. 

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This concludes the Crypticon Minneapolis countdown series.
The event runs from October 2-4.
Have a great time at the convention with your parents, Laura!