Customer Reviews

Herbert West Reanimator

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This work by H.P. Lovecraft is definitely one that should get more attention. Not only does the story have a great blend of dark humor and science, it also contains pure terror, which will keep you up in bed at night, frantically wondering what that noise was in the hall. The original story is without a doubt much better than the 1985 movie, which had almost nothing to do with it at all. The story had more moments of suspense and intellectual processing, while the movie replaced all that with gore and violence. Go out and get this story, if you're a Lovecraft fan, as well as a fan of the movie.

"It is uncommon to fire all six shots of a revolver with great suddenness when one would be sufficient, but many things in the life of Herbert West were uncommon."

Originally written in serial form for the weird-fiction pulp magazine "Home Brew," Lovecraft considered this to be his poorest work. Thousands of readers, myself included, have disagreed with him ever since.

Herbert West, Re-animator definitely has a different flavor than many of Lovecraft's tales. It is more of a straight horror story and lacks elements of cosmic horror. It relies on gore for it's chills, but still retains Lovecraft's use of language and "just out of sight" horror.

The story is told "Watson-Style" by Herbert West's assistant. It takes place over 17 years, and details the experiments of a brilliant young medical student and his quest for the re-animation of dead flesh. Herbert West's drive for a fresher and fresher corpse is chilling, as is his slow descent into madness.

From the beginning, we know nothing good will come of this. But that is why we read H.P. Lovecraft

From an objective point of view, this propably is not so (just look at all these reviews), but *I* though this was weird, could not decide whether to be badly quasi-scientific or just supernatural, and could not possibly frighten me to the least because I was being too busy thinking it was stupid. There were some (potentially) good elements, they were just buried deep beneath all the crap. Oh well, maybe I should read it again.