RE-ANIMATOR, Horror, and The Creative Spirit
The Spirit of American Exceptionalism is Alive and Well!
Recently, I got together with a bunch of friends and we all watched RE-ANIMATOR. These friends weren’t film-savvy, blowhards like your humble writer. They enjoyed the occasional recent wide release, and dabbled in whatever the horror section on Netflix offered them.
It was the first time many of us had scene this 1985 cult classic about a mad scientist, obsessed with the notion of immortality. His warped neurosis blinds him to the dangers of reanimating the dead, whether it be a deceased friend, colleague, or recently admitted morgue subject.
After being forced away from all scholarly pursuit in his native Switzerland, the doctor retreats to a small town across the pond in Massachusetts, where his devious trials continue…
I won’t spoil or attempt to review the film—many have done so over the years. I would only say that the film is decidedly campy and self-aware. It is exciting and funny, something that should be enjoyed in a large group.
RE-ANIMATOR also asks that you revel in the ingenuity of it’s special effects—the technical wizardry involved in making the film.
In the middle of a particularly complex sequence involving a headless corpse, I gaze over at one friend—an experienced make-up artist with experience on film sets.
Her eyes light up. The magic of the movies.
Story time.
Back when I lived in Tallahassee, I used to hang around a certain type of person. Mostly, this type of person worked in the hospitality business, same as I.
If you’re lucky in life, you stumble upon a clique that speaks to your truth. You indulge in the same things, commit yourselves to the same craft—ruminate on whatever excites you, be it hiking, concerts, or stage shows.
Your clique loves what they love and genuflect at the altars of those great artists or creators that speak to all your truths. It’s a nice feeling, being around similar minded people.
And if you’re REALLY lucky, like your humble writer is, you find that these lovers of art, lovers of texts, also happen to be craftsmen, themselves. Practitioners of whatever their passions or compulsions deem important for the spirit.
And though we all had regular day jobs, we made time for the things that inspired us. Namely, filmmaking. In one way or another, we were all experienced in an area of filmmaking.
Some were cameramen. Some, weather-worn makeup artists. Some dealt with lighting and others, stage design. Tally was chock full of underground filmmakers.
Why? It was because of Tallahassee’s proximity to Atlanta. You might be surprised to hear this, but a lot of the television and film you consume is shot, produced and edited in and around Atlanta, Georgia.
My friends would work day jobs for a discernible period of time, then go on leaves of absences to pursue their dream jobs facilitating Hollywood productions.
A hectic way to lead a life, no doubt, but they all claim it’s worth. The fire in their loins beckon them onwards.
From time to time, this friend group would tap into their small, but reliable network of industry professionals to form small independent productions. Tiny, micro-budget films made by the community, for the community.
They would make films on the cheap and shoot quickly, utilizing personal living spaces. They would make use of personal cars for traffic scenes, often inquiring on close-friends to do the same.
For background actors, we would call on our close friends and family, enticing them not with monetary gain, but free food and beverage (take note, indie filmmakers!)
The make-up would consist of whatever cosmetics one would find at an ULTA, then made to look as professional as possible. Costumes were often times thrifted, if not amalgamated from personal closets.
What bound them all together was a need to work on a set. The drive to manifest whatever script lay before them, a singular vision.
I can only think of professional Kitchens as coming close to the heated camaraderie of a film set. The hustle, the turmoil.
And though all these filmmakers come together on this fertile mound hailing from different styles of filmmaking—different aesthetics, different modes of thought—funny enough, all these beautiful people converge on one kind of movie.
A genre we know well: Horror.
I’m serious. Every single amateur set I’ve visited or had the pleasure of accompanying was deep in the production of a horror feature. A horror short.
They ran the gamut of style: Ghost story, stalker thriller, monster mash, snuff film, chase movies, home invasion. They could make any kind of film, and yet eight times out if ten, you would find yourself walking into a set with a wolf-man sitting at a makeup chair smoking a cigarette.
Why is that so? Well, here’s my theory: Within every horror film lays two winning qualities that are fundamentally at odds.
On the one hand, they are heady. Meaning, although these movies deal with outlandish or crazy scenarios, they ultimately elicit fear through real life trauma.
Ari Ester’s HEREDITARY is not just a devil movie, it’s about the collapse of a relationship between a mother and son. A family drama.
SILENCE OF THE LAMBS is ostensibly about the search for a serial kidnapper, but REALLY, it’s about a woman working desperately to save another woman. And she does so in spite of this bureaucracy of asshole men who get in her way.
On the other hand, horror films are incredibly tactile, textural. You don’t need to mine deep meaning to relish in the awesome bloody gore effects served to you on a platter.
It’s always fun to watch the stalking behemoth decapitate post-coital teens. The same could be said for the insane blood squirts that follow an alien baby bursting out of a person’s upper torso.
For the craftsman, these texural pleasures are obvious. “How did they do that?” “Where did they hide the blood packets when the lady gets cut in two?” “This was clearly shot at night, but how did the lighting people make it look like the sun is out?”
The questions rise like tides in a livened shore. We’re enticed by their mystery, entranced by the story. For the audience and the aspiring film technician, another mode of pleasure has just revealed itself.
Here’s a specific example of this phenomenon:
THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT made it’s initial splash with an unusual and inventive premise, yes, but it’s the film’s discernible wear and tear that cements it in the canon.
You don’t need a degree in film studies to see the glue and stables that hold the production together—the grainy audio and shoddy camera work that permeates it’s brisk, 81 minute run time.
But in spite of all these flaws and eccentricities, this rag-tag crew of independent filmmakers managed to pull off one of the greatest rags to riches stories in the history of the genre. A mammoth success rivaled by few.
The story works on a heady level, yes (three filmmakers examine their deteriorating friendship within this larger story of a Salem witch haunting) but the bones of this production, the fundamentals of shooting, are its north star.
Anyone with a basic level of competency and a mid-tier camera could have made this film and I say this as a profound compliment.
You don’t often experience an artistic text and think, “If they could do that, I can do it, too.” This is essential for the creative person. Fundamental, even.
If I’m an amateur filmmaker cranking out shorts primarily shot in my backyard with blanket-wrapped actors howling “whoooooo,” pretending to be ghosts, I would look at this wild success and think: I can do that, too. Fuck yeah, I can.
Directors, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez, were not Hollywood elites, or cash-rich entrepreneurs. They were salt-of-the-earth film students from Florida, making their bones in local television, and film, traveling from location to location, committing themselves to various projects.
Just like my friend group in Tallahassee.
Stories like these are good. Essential for the spirit of American exceptionalism. They light a fire under one’s ass and beckon them to keep grinding.
When credits rolled on RE-ANIMATOR, my fired group had an enlivened conversation on the story—the iconic characters.
Interestingly, the majority of our time was spent reviewing the awesome make-up and practical effects. This, in a group that didn’t really understand the fundamentals of the industry.
Creativity breeds creativity.