What #MacabroXV Left Us: INK, ACTING, BLOOD AND CELLULOID

By: Casandra Vicario

These fifteen years of "Macabro" have three very special escorts: film director Stuart Gordon, cult actor Jeffrey Combs, and screenwriter Dennis Paoli. The three of them have teamed up five times to delight us with an array of horrors. Shall we take a look at these films?

The first of them is Re-Animator, a favorite of many of us, born in 1985, based on an H.P. Lovecraft story titled Herbert West–Reanimator, although it has very little in common with the story in question.

Re-Animator introduces us to Dr. Herbert West, a member of Miskatonic University, who is in the process of experimenting with a phosphorescent green serum that can bring the dead back to life.

At the time, in 1985, this film was considered one of the bloodiest ever made; a hardly negligible 25 gallons of fake blood were used during filming. Every gore aficionado or fan of gore cinema should know it, and some of them surely keep a shrine to it at home.

Accolades were quick to follow for this film, winning Best Picture at the Sitges Film Festival in 1985 and also a critics' award at the famous Cannes Film Festival. (No big deal!)

Mexican theaters screened the film two years after its original release, that is, in 1987, under the title "Resurrección Satánica."

Success brought sequels, so the next installment was titled "Bride of Re-Animator" (1990), and several years later, "Beyond Re-Animator" (2003).

This film was directed by Stuart Gordon, the role of Herbert West was, of course, played by Jeffrey Combs, and the screenplay was written by Dennis Paoli, Stuart Gordon, William Norris, and, of course, H.P. Lovecraft. It also features one of our favorite scream queens: Barbara Crampton.

The next film in which the Gordon, Combs, and Paoli trio came together to scare so many people came out exactly one year after "Re-Animator" and is called "Re-Sonator."

Also based on an H.P. Lovecraft text titled "From Beyond," the title by which this film is better known, it is a very short story of about 10 pages.

Dr. Pretorius and his colleague Dr. Tilinghast (Jeffrey Combs) are working on a very particular experiment in which they stimulate the pineal gland to open a fourth dimension; when they succeed, they also begin to come into contact with other beings.

Continuing on our journey, we now move to an adaptation of a story by Edgar Allan Poe: The Pit and the Pendulum, a 1990 film set in the time of the Inquisition.

María, a baker's wife, is accused of witchcraft by none other than Torquemada himself, and is imprisoned; there she meets Esmeralda, an authentic witch who will help her escape the clutches of the evil inquisitor.

Jeffrey Combs's role in this film is that of Francisco, while the lead roles were played by Lance Henriksen as Torquemada and Rona De Ricci as María.

We return to Lovecraft-based stories, and in 1995, the trio of Gordon, Combs, and Paoli reunited once again to terrify us with "Castle Freak," or "Castillo Maldito" as it was called in our country.

The film is based on Lovecraft's story titled "The Outsider," written in 1921, and tells the story of a married couple who inherit a castle in Europe; once settled in, they begin to hear strange noises at night, signaling the presence of a monstrous being in the place. Oh! Did I mention that the couple's daughter is blind?

One of the rumors circulating about this film, which is ridiculous but worth mentioning here, is that the Vatican supposedly blessed the film, fearing the effect it might have on viewers.

Finally, for the second season of "Masters of Horror," in its episode 11, our macabre trio came together to create the episode "The Black Cat," once again based on a text by Edgar Allan Poe, though with some differences.

This time Jeffrey Combs played Master Poe, who is going through a rough patch with his writing, while an annoying black cat keeps pestering him — something that could either make his life worse or inspire him to write one of his best stories.

There is no doubt that good old Stuart Gordon enjoys the stories of Lovecraft and Poe.