Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) just can't stop trying to bring the dead back to life using his neon green experimental serum, with a corpse (without its mouth) attacking the sister of a boy in their kitchen. West is arrested and sent away to a nasty warden's (Simón Andreu) prison, somewhat prevented from continuing his experiments. He has developed a type of "nanoplasm" which might can correct the deranged reactions of the green serum on humans after they die
too bad this nanoplasm, like the green liquid, has certain "side effects". Nanoplasm must be "extracted" through electrocution from one life form and then transplanted to another
what this does is transfer the actual presence of the one into the other. The boy who witnessed his daughter's death has grown into a doctor (Jason Barry, top five of his class) and received a post at the very prison West is interred. He wants to work with West, still holding onto a vial of his magic juice which begins a series of loony events that will lead to crazed corpses biting tits, a half-torso rat-loving jailbird swinging around on a rope, a bald-headed, Catholic-guilt, steel-toothed heart attack victim trying to swallow a giant rat, rat energy transplanted into the warden which causes him to react like a rodent (!), an addict who injects the green fluid and literally bursts at the seams, West literally electrocuting a zombie in the chair (!), a strangled victim of the warden (Elsa Pataky, portraying a reporter looking for a story inside the "death house") brought back to life and then unfortunately given nanoplasm culled from the very man who killed her, among other crazy shenanigans in this special effects extravaganza. You literally see the warden's "lifeforce" coursing through Pataky as she tries to fight him away, unsuccessfully. Severed heads, penis and eyeballs are active participants, hanging prisoners kicking their feet as the sadistic warden wants to continue to punish them even after death (!), plenty of warden wielding his silver-tipped cane, lots of Pataky which is never a bad thing, and a riot turning convicts on guards. The religious nut (Nico Baixas) is a hoot, seemingly innocent yet encumbered with an insatiable appetite thanks to his resurrection; his reaching to the sky as the light emerges with SWAT blasting away sends him off with a bang. Combs is in fine form, still arrogant and brilliant as West, too absorbed in seeing that his work escapes failure, with plenty of sacrificial lambs proving otherwise. At least this film allows him to continue his work, as previous films seemed to indicate his demise. Lots of busy noise and in pure Brian Yuzna style, a real flair for gonzo gory carnage. Yuzna is an acquired taste, but he was always diving head first into the craziest of material, working in Spain at this point in his career. Andreu, as the main antagonist, is a real heel both alive and dead...in this series, although West is never technically a hero, he often is by default celebrated just because there is someone opposite him *even worse*.
Review of Beyond Re-Animator
