The rudimentary plot Bride
of Re-Animator —directly reanimated from an original idea for Bride of Frankenstein that would have found
Elizabeth Frankenstein murdered and her heart placed in Elsa Lanchester’s body—is
mostly an excuse for Yuzna and his special effects team to indulge in all sorts
of monstery mayhem. There’s a sort of spider creature assembled from an eyeball
and fingers, a group of cackling zombies, dog and bat parts mixed-and-matched
with human bits, and some seriously nasty gore that necessitated two cuts of
the movie. Both are included on Arrow Video’s new Bride of Re-Animator
blu-ray. The unrated version lingers on several gore scenes a little longer
than the R-rated one does, but the trajectory and running times of both films
are identical. Bride of Re-Animator may be a slab of cheap-o
exploitation, but it’s a great-looking one, and Arrow presents it with rich
color and organic fidelity, though there are a few elements from the uncensored
cut that look washed out (they only constitute seconds of the movie, so don’t
fret too much about that). I’ve read that there were some audio problems with Capelight’s previous blu-ray edition of Bride, but there are no such issues with Arrow’s.
Supplements include three audio commentaries that find Yuzna
and the special effects team providing insight into their film’s inspirations
and production and Combs and Abbott just having a ball rewatching the thing, as
well as an hour of new and archival video content. “Brian Yuzna Remembers”
gives the filmmaker the opportunity to discuss his movie on camera for ten
minutes, while “Splatter Masters” allots fifteen minutes for the special
effects team to do the same. The archival stuff includes a vintage making-of
featurette, a deleted scene captured from behind the scenes that brings back Cain’s
girlfriend but settles for a Barbara Crampton lookalike, and the cast and crew
discussing another deleted scenes to still-photo accompaniment. All of this is
very nice treatment for an often-underappreciated episode in one of the very,
very few horror franchises that’s actually worth a damn.
