MCBASTARD'S MAUSOLEUM

REANIMATOR ACADEMY (1992)

Visual Vengeance Collector's Edition Blu-ray

Label: Visual Vengeance

Region Code: Region-Free

Rating: Unrated

Duration: 68 Minutes 32 Seconds

Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles

Video: 1080i HD Fullscreen (1.33:1)

Director: Judith Priest

Cast: Connie Speer, Steve Westerheit, Benton Jennings, Tricia Anderson, Richard Perrin, Sarah Paxton

1992 slapstick SOV sci-fi/horror comedy Reanimator Academy is directed by Brett McCormick (The Abomination) who used the bad-ass feminine pseudonym 'Judith Priest' on this flick, which he was apparently ashamed of. It's a no-budget slice of schlock produced for David Decoteau (Sorority Babes in the Slime Ball Bowl-O-Rama), combining the elements of Stuart Gordon's Re-Animator with the goody absurdist charm of something like Frank Henelotter's Frankenhooker, with the old school yuck-yucks and visual gags of a Three Stooges short.

The film starts off with college student Edgar Allen Lovecraft (Steve Westerheit), a member of the Delta Epsilon Delta (DED) fraternity, who while his frat brothers are busy chugging beers and wearing underwear on their head during an all-night kegger he's in his room working on a reanimator serum, which he perfects, bringing the charred and severed head of a comedian named Fred to life. Separate from that we follow a sex-worker named Hot Lips (Connie Speer, The Nail Gun Massacre) who is working the streets when he mob-connected pimp Mugsy (Richard Perrin, Steele's Law) send his dim-witted enforcer Bruno (Benton Jennings, Highway To Hell) to pick her up and bring her back to the office, where he proceeds to interrogate her about skimming cash. He ends up shooting her thirty times, but immediately regrets killing his main squeeze. They place her body in a freezer and a short time later Mugsy sees a news story about Lovecraft's and his reanimating serum, so they take her body out of the freezer and to his frat house and force Lovecraft to inject her with the serum to bring her corpse back to life, unaware the the serum has a weird side effect, when injected into female specimens. The side effect is dubbed the "Shrew Syndrome", the injected women become comically raging nags. When Hot Lips is resurrected she's a full-on super-shrew, chastising Mugsy before taking off to return to the streets to continue her sex work, but instead of turning tricks she ends up on a campus killing spree, literally punching the heads off would-be customers who annoy her. She leaves a trail of decapitated heads behind her that the gangsters and Lovecraft follow as they attempt to recover her and administer a newly created serum that will hopefully counteract the Shrew Syndrome.

This flick was super-silly, there are no scares to be had here, just a non-stop low-budget schlock full of groan-inducing puns and visual gags in the tradition of Looney Tunes by way of The Three Stooges. I honestly expected this to be awful, and it is, but I found myself laughing quite a bit at how full-on stupid by design it was, it's that commitment to the stupidity of it all that makes it work. Westerheit as Lovecraft is a fun riff on the Jeffrey Combs Herbert West character from Re-Animator, but for my money it's the two gangsters who feel like they walked off a 1940's poverty row gangster flick that was the main attraction, they are, woefully out of place in an '80s flick, but I liked their schtick and back and forth banter, particularly from Benton Jenning's as the dim-witted Bruno, who in my opinion is the MVP of the whole flick. When Mugsy tells him to grease Hot Lips he grabs a grease gun and applies a dollop of lube to her chest, and when he then clarifies that he wants her to be blown away Bruno whips out a hairdryer - that's the sort of bad-pun visual gaggery we're getting here, and while there are certainly some groaners I thought it was pretty hilarious. I also found the super-shrew'd Hot Lips to be pretty hilarious in her irritated bitchy-ness, especially her encounter with a cop, played by Tom Fegan (Christmas Craft Fair Massacre), who is the first to get the one-punch decap treatment. The acting is a bit amateurish but there was just something I adored about how cartoonish this went, and clearly the actors involved all understood the assignment and are having a blast with this one.

Audio/Video: The flick is presented in 1080i fullscreen (1.33:1), sourced from the existing SD masters tapes, looking appropriately dupey and murky looking, definition and detail is soft and smeary looking, so exactly the way a shot-on-video flick should look, like you're watching a VHS tape. Audio comes by way of English Dolby Digital 2.0 with optional English subtitles. The track is thin and a little muffled in spots, but for an SOV flick from the early 90s, not too shabby, you can only polish the lo-fi track so much, but there's not a lot of hiss or distortion to contend with, which is nice. There is an alternate 2023 Alternate Soundtrack Cut audio option, not sure of the source here, but to my ears it it was quite a bit noisier, sounding less filtered and muffled, and the music had more treble to it, so the music cues sounded better, but I would call it a draw between the two options.

We get plentiful extras here, starting off with a Audio Commentary from Sam Panico of B&S About Movies and Bill Van Ryn of Drive-In Asylum. There is also a 9-min Talking Heads: Director Bret McCormick Interview who talks about having just made Macon County War for producer Fred Olen Ray, and through him contacting producer David DeCoteau to make this film and a couple more SOV grinders for DeCoteau. He also talks about how low-budget it was the quick turnaround, using a pseudonym as director, the awesome Judith Priest, and how he kept this off his resume as was not particularly proud of it. Though he says rewatching it these many years later, he stills thinks its terrible, but sees the charm in it,

There's also a 6-min Back To School: Reanimator Academy Location Tour with director Brett MCormick who revisits locations in Fort Worth, TX around the TCU campus, where they shot the scenes guerrilla-style. We also get a 7-min Brainwaves: Scoring Reanimator Academy: Interview with Greg Synodis, who speaks how he met McCormick, who he says was quite a hustler, and how the worked together on Highway To hell and Reanimator Academy, mentioning his band Lithium X-Mas, who appeared on the soundtrack of both films, and how he scraped the soundtrack together with leftover song ideas.

There is a 4-min Interview with actor Tom Fegan who played the cop who gets his head one-punch knocked-off by Hot Lips, plus a 4-min Fred The Head Interview which is cheesy fun. That's not all, we also get the aforementioned Reanimator Academy: 2023 Director’s Alternate Soundtrack Cut, plus the 56-min Bonus Film: Bret McCormick’s Children of Dracula (1994), which is a documentary about 'real-life' vampires with dramatic re-enactments, plus a 5-min Bret McCormick Interview: Children of Dracula wherein he talks about how the project came about, pitching it to computer reseller/financier David Stevens, and then to Tom Moore of distributor Real Movie International, who agreed to distribute it. It was designed to ride the coattails of Interview with The Vampire, and how Moore basically dropped the ball on the release after he turned in his cut of the film. The last of the interviews is a 16-min Bret McCormick Reanimator Academy Q&A - Nitehawk Cinema featuring the director speaking to a crowd at a screening via video conferencing.

The last of the extras include 5-min of Visual Vengeance Trailers, including Reanimator Academy, Highway To Hell, The Abomination and RepliGator.

The single-disc Blu-ray arrives in a clear keecase with a Reversible Wrap featuring the original 1992 Cinema Home Video VHS artwork, plus a new illustration which I could not identify, but it made me laugh, because this film wishes the reanimated severed head looked that good in reality! Tucked away inside is a Folded Mini-Poster featuring artwork by Giorgio Credaro.

The Limited Edition (First-Pressing Only) of this release also includes a set of the ‘Stick Your Own’ VHS Stickers, plus a Limited Edition 'Movie Galaxy' Video Store Card, plus a Slipcover with new artwork by Giorgio Credaro with and eyeful of garish green and hot pink that looks terrific on the shelf.

Special Features:

- Transfer from existing SD tape masters

- Audio Commentary from Sam Panico of B&S About Movies and Bill Van Ryn of Drive-In Asylum

- Talking Heads: director Bret McCormick Interview (8:50)

- Back To School: Reanimator Academy Location Tour (5:40)

- Brainwaves: Scoring Reanimator Academy (7:26)

- Interview with actor Tom Fegan (4:28)

- Fred The Head interview (4:01)

- Reanimator Academy: 2023 director’s alternate soundtrack cut (68:32)

- Bonus film: Bret McCormick’s Children of Dracula (1994, 55:57)

- Bret McCormick Interview: Children of Dracula (4:33)

- Bret McCormick Reanimator Academy Q&A - Nitehawk Cinema (15:58)