Movies
Stage Review: ‘Re-Animator: The Musical’
With all of the hype over the past few months, Bloody Disgusting stringer Micah enjoyed a bit of song, dance and gore in “Re-Animator The Musical!”
In 1985 Stuart Gordon directed his first feature film and created a sensation. It was Re-Animator, a smashing success based on a horror story by H.P. Lovecraft. The film delivered as many laughs as it did screams, making it a cult classic among horror fans, and won a Critic’s Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Now Gordon is back with his co-writers Dennis Paoli and William J. Norris and composer/lyricist Mark Nutter to turn Re-Animator into a musical for the stage.
Special effects were done by the same guys who did them for the 1985 movie: Tony Doublin, John Naulin, and John Beuchler. And the blood will flow so freely that the first row will literally be designated as a “splash zone.” Needless to say, the show is not for small children.
The cast stars Harry S. Murphy, Chris L. McKenna (King of the Ants), and Jesse Merlin (Star of The Beastly Bombing). Also starring are Rachel Avery, Mark Beltzman, Cynthia Carle, Marlon Grace, Brian Gillespie, and Liesel Hanson, and introducing Graham Skipper as Herbert West.
I don’t get out to many musicals. In fact, Re-Animator: The Musical was the first one I intentionally bought a ticket for. Theatrical performances typically turn me off. I feel the same way about horror movie musicals as well. While watching Sweeney Todd the thought of taking a butcher knife to the face seemed a welcome relief and though I liked the uniqueness and concept, Repo: The Genetic Opera took me multiple sittings to finish. Little Shop of Horrors? No thanks. I once dated a girl who forced me to watch Moulin Rouge. We broke up a week later. I go in with an open-mind, but it’s just not my bag, baby.
But my opinion of musicals was forever altered after spending a couple hours in the “Splash Zone” last Sunday night at The Steve Allen Theater in Los Angeles. The show was literally a bonkers amount of gory fun.
Stuart Gordon’s 1985 horror comedy is undoubtedly one of the genre’s best and most beloved cult films. It ranks right up there with Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead franchise or Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive. Jeffrey Combs (as Dr. Herbert West) has an impressive cult following right up there with the legendary Bruce Campbell (as Ash). It seemed a natural fit with the overwhelming success of Evil Dead: The Musical that Re-Animator would be musically adapted as well. Gordon agreed and signed on to co-write and direct the musical version. He brought back the original 1985 SFX team (John Naulin, Tony Doublin and John Beuchler) to recreate the zombies and over-the-top gore that legions of fans have fallen in love with over the years. And boy did they nail it! I can’t help but to think that having the core group back (especially Gordon) aided immensely in how true the musical is to the film and just how much insanity was injected into the musical.
And that’s just it. The musical captures the very essence of the film. Everything that is great about the film is on display, including my favorite, the perverted and perpetually on break security guard. Right from the first song which nurses, doctors and janitors morbidly and hilariously declares that young medical student Dan Cain’s (Chris McKenna) patient was “Dead, Dan! She’s really really dead, Dan!” you know you are in for a treat. Every song, besides being well written and relevant to the story, had the audience rolling with laughter. Herbert West’s grand delusions come to life in song form. Dr. Karl Hill’s (Jesse Merlin) creepy and slimy personality is illustrated so well via the songs (and Merlin’s noticeable acting chops) that I now prefer his performance over the original character. Crazy? Blasphemous? Believe me, I know.
Graham Skipper as the infamous Dr. Herbert West has the toughest challenge of any of the actors, but pulls it off admirably. His take on the character is spot-on for the musical which comes off as an ever so slightly campier version than Combs. He never tries to over do it, instead running with the absurdness of the character to create his own identity as West. The stunningly beautiful Rachel Avery as Megan Halsey steals several scenes with some rather fantastic comedic timing. Her biggest highlight being a standing upright bed sex scene that turns into a guy’s nightmare — a duet with her fiance Dan focusing on why they need a big wedding with “six or seven hundred of their closest friends.” And yes, she is briefly topless — though not in the scene you would suspect.
From the dead cat scene, to the first morgue reanimation, to the rousing (and immensely famous) conclusion there isn’t a dull minute to be found. By the time West wraps himself in a human intestine / spray hose and gleefully DRENCHES (they offer a garbage to cover your clothes) the audience, my face hurt from laughing so much. As we left the packed theater I looked around for a tip jar so I could give some more money. I was that impressed.
The following morning I discovered my program was covered in fake blood and brain matter. The sh*t eating grin I proudly displayed the night before came rushing back.
Written and Directed by Stevan Mena on a budget of around $200,000, Malevolence was only released in ten theaters after it was purchased by Anchor Bay and released direct-to-DVD like so many other indie horrors. This one has many of the same pratfalls as its bargain bin brethren, which have probably helped to keep it hidden all these years. But it also has some unforgettable moments that will make horror fans (especially fans of the original Halloween) smile and point at the TV like Leonardo DiCaprio in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Malevolence is the story of a silent and masked killer told through the lens of a group of bank robbers hiding out after a score. The bank robbery is only experienced audibly from the outside of the bank, but whether the film has the budgetary means to handle this portion well or not, the idea of mixing a bank robbery tale into a masked slasher movie is a strong one.
Of course, the bank robbery goes wrong and the crew is split up. Once the table is fully set, we have three bank robbers, an innocent mom and her young daughter as hostages, and a masked man lurking in the shadows who looks like a mix between baghead Jason from Friday the 13th Part 2 and the killer from The Town That Dreaded Sundown. Let the slashing begin.
Many films have tried to recreate the aesthetic notes of John Carpenter’s 1978 classic Halloween, and at its best Malevolence is the equivalent of a shockingly good cover song.
Though the acting and script are at times lacking, the direction, score, and cinematography come together for little moments of old-school slasher goodness that will send tingles up your spine. It’s no Halloween, to be clear, but it does Halloween reasonably proud. The nighttime shots come lit with the same blue lighting and the musical notes of the score pop off at such specific moments, fans might find themselves laughing out loud at the absurdity of how hard the homages hit. When the killer jumps into frame, accompanied by the aforementioned musical notes, he does so sharply and with the same slow intensity as Michael Myers. Other films in the subgenre (and even a few in the Halloween franchise) will tell you this isn’t an easy thing to duplicate.
The production and costume designs of Malevolence hint at love letters to other classic horror films as well. The country location not only provides for an opening Halloween IV fans will appreciate but the abandoned meat plant and the furnishings inside make for some great callbacks to 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. All of this is buoyed and accentuated by cinematography that you rarely see in today’s low-budget films. The film is shot on 35mm film by A&E documentary filmmaker Tsuyoshi Kimono, who gives Malevolence an old-school, grainy, 1970s aesthetic that feels completely natural and not like a cheap gimmick.
Malevolence is a movie that no doubt has some glaring imperfections but it is also a movie that is peppered with moments of potential. There’s a reason they made a follow-up prequel titled Malevolence 2: Bereavement years later (and another after that) that starred both Michael Biehn and Alexandra Daddario! That film tells the origin story of our baghead, Martin Bristol. Something the first film touches on a little bit, at least enough to give you the gist of what happened here. Long story short, a six-year-old boy was kidnapped by a serial killer and for years forced to watch him hunt, torture, and kill his victims. Which brings me to another fascinating aspect of Malevolence. The ending. SPOILER WARNING.
After the mother and child are saved from the killer, our slasher is gone, his bloody mask left on the floor. The camera pans around different areas of the town, showing all the places he may be lurking. If you’re down with the fact that it’s pretty obvious this is all an intentional love letter and not a bad rip-off, it’s pretty fun. Where Malevolence makes its own mark is in the true crime moments to follow. Law enforcement officers pull up to the plant and uncover a multitude of horrors. They find the notebooks of the original killer, which explain that he kidnapped the boy, taught him how to hunt, and was now being hunted by him. This also happened to be his final entry. We discover a hauntingly long line of bodies covered in white sheets: the bodies of the many missing persons the town had for years been searching for. And there are a whole lot of them. This moment really adds a cool layer of serial killer creepiness to the film.
Ultimately, Malevolence is a low-budget movie with some obvious deficiencies on full display. Enough of them that I can imagine many viewers giving up on the film before they get to what makes it so special, which probably explains how it has gone so far under the radar all these years. But the film is a wonderful ode to slashers that have come before it and still finds a way to bring an originality of its own by tying a bank robbery story into a slasher affair. Give Malevolence a chance the next time you’re in the mood for a nice little old school slasher movie.
Malevolence is now streaming on Tubi and Peacock.
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