It seems to happen once every few months, the prospect of RE-ANIMATOR 4 – or HOUSE OF RE-ANIMATOR – comes up and gets everyone a little excited, before they have their dreams crushed when they realize the piece of news is that it’s probably NOT happening… Sorry, kids, this is one of those stories.
What’s unique about it is that here we have Jeffrey Combs talking about the concept – and how he’s NOT particularly a fan of the idea. If you’ll remember, the film would basically tell the tale of the president (William H. Macy) dying, Herbert West (Combs) re-animating him, and all kinds of bloody shenanigans ensuing (along with some well-placed subversive humor). Here’s Combs’ take:
“…this is one of those things where Stuart and I still have an on-going difference of opinion on! Because my argument was “Fine.” I love the idea of Herbert getting put into a political story where the President or Vice-President is dead and can’t be, so I resurrect him, bring him back and chaos ensues. I love that sort of idea! But where we sort of veer away from each other is that Stuart wants to do it right on the nose. Like an impersonation of Bush and Cheney and all of them.”
“I just thought, firstly RE-ANIMATOR has never been a political vehicle and you’ve got a long way to go to convince me that it should be! And two, that’s fine now, but in two years I don’t know if it’s still relevant. Then as it came closer and closer to like, you have to write this thing, then you have to shoot it, then you have to post, then you have to release it before an election day, it became even more and more clear to me that it shouldn’t be an impersonation.”
A while back, the idea had been floated around that the idea would be used for a MASTERS OF HORROR episode – which sounded like a great place for it. MASTERS of course no longer exists – it has been transformed into the network anthology FEAR ITSELF by the same producers – but it could still work. Now would the network want to touch a project with this touchy political subject matter? Probably not. I don’t think we should hold our breath on this one, folks.
To read the full interview (where Combs talks about his long career) check out Icons of Fright!
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