Another movie adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s “Herbert West: Reanimator”

Herbert West is a fictional character created by H. P. Lovecraft for his short story “Herbert West—Reanimator“, first published in 1922. Herbert West is the inventor of a special solution that when injected into a main artery of a recently deceased person or animal causes the body’s mechanical, living functions to return. However, most subjects that have undergone the “re-animation” process have turned violent and, after failed attempts to return to their own graves, have terrorized the communities into which they were reanimated. In Lovecraft‘s tale, Herbert West was ostracized by his fellow medical students because he believed he could overcome death and had only one friend: the unnamed narrator of the story.

There have been several film adaptations of the story. The most popular surely is the saga created by filmmakers Stuart Gordon and Brian Yuzna that started with horror gory classic Re-Animator (1985), directed by Gordon and continued with Bride of Re-Animator (1989) and Beyond Re-Animator (2003), both directed by Yuzna. In them, Jeffrey Combs masterfully portraits an obsessed and mentally unstable Herbert West playing god with horrific results.

This year will see the release of another adaptation of the classic. Serge Levin, actor in several TV series and movies, has written and directed his own Herbert West film entitled Herbert West: Reanimator (2018). The movie stars veteran popular horror actors Brad Dourif and Lin Shaye, and also includes a role played by the director Serge Levin himself. The official storyline of the movie reads “Pursued by the police, an ambitious neuroscientist uses a neutrino impulse to bring his dead wife back to life, unintentionally unlocking within her dormant powers that threaten the existence of everyone he knows”.

Herbert West: Reanimator (2018) had the working titles Antihuman, Re-Animator: Evolution and Waken before the filmmakers decided to use the same title as in the original Lovecraft story. The movie is expected to see the light next December the 15th in the USA. We’ll have to stay aware of upcoming international release dates and trailers. So far, this exciting project has achieved little but positive expectation, like can be seen in the movie’s official Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/hwestreanimator. Personally, I’m gonna follow the page because I wanna be the first one to know what’s next with Herbert West: Reanimator (2018). Doctor West, be back to our lives!