Re-Animator: the Musical!

[tealin]

I had previously expressed interest in seeing Re-Animator: the Musical, but I was beginning to worry if I would or not, with one thing and another taking up my weekends. Luckily octaveleap and her significant other surprised me with a ticket for the midnight show on Friday (technically Saturday) so we trooped down to the back end of Hollywood and MUCH FUN WAS HAD.

There's no assigned seating, so if you want seats near the front, you have to get there before they open the doors. This means sitting through the opening band, but if ours was anything to go by, they should be reasonably proficient. It's a very small venue, so there are really no bad seats, just distance from the stage and maybe a less clear view of the actors' feet. It's a shoestring production but that hardly affects it at all – the actors are great and vastly overcome the one-man-synth accompaniment and wall-with-a-door set. The spareness of the production actually brings a lot of charm to it, and in such a small venue, if you're near the front you're practically onstage with the actors, which is pretty awesome. It would still be a good show in a more lavish setting, but the casual nature makes it a lot of fun and might even make the silliness easier to accept.

Because ohhh, is it silly. It's basically a musical setting of the 1985 movie, written/directed by the writer/director of the film, which is a very very loose adaptation of the stories – it's interesting to see how elements of the stories get woven into this entirely new cloth, but basically the only things that haven't been changed are the premise and the names of the characters. My main gripe with the film is that Herbert West isn't played as the sort of character he is in the stories; instead of a manic monomaniac he's more of a jerk, and without liking him (or at least finding him entertaining) it's hard to care about what he does or what happens to him and, in consequence, anything in the movie. (I know the other guy is supposed to be the audience vehicle but he's just dull!) This time around, though, the actor played him much more true to the original – I was won over by the 'does this house have a basement?' scene and stayed won over all the way through. The whole cast is great, just great, from Dr Halsey's masterful gurning to Megan's surprisingly genuine portrayal of a girl whose world suddenly falls apart because of the crazy man in the basement (the house does have a basement).

Sorry, I got a bit distracted – what I was aiming to say was that while I did not like the movie terribly much when I saw it, I think it's really helped by turning it into a musical. Not only does it elevate the camp to sublime levels but it just makes it more fun all around. You can't have Dr Hill and West believably break into a spontaneous two-step in a straight film but it's a perfect moment in the musical scene. The music isn't the sort of stuff you're going to hum in the car on the way home or see people singing on Glee,* but it's perfectly enjoyable and serves the plot and characters very well, which is its job really when you get right down to it.

*If they did, I might actually go out of my way to watch it, because what an episode that would be! Ohhh, now I'm hoping they'll do it – see what I do to myself? It's only disappointment now.

Of course, what everyone's talking about with this production is the blood ... It is, er, an interactive dramatic performance ... there is a designated 'splash zone' and I can tell you, as someone in the front row, if they say you're in the splash zone you will get wet. I admit I had some slight trepidation, especially if the 'blood' was going to be a)warm b)dark c)salty or d)all of the above, but it was a light pink and refreshingly floral soapy concoction delivered in the midst of such goofiness that it was all fun. That said, though, I think if I did go again I'd sit a little further back if only to actually see what was going on in That One Scene, during which I had mostly been occupied wiping the stuff out of my eyes. :D If you don't think you'll enjoy being splashed with fake blood (which washes out, by the way) or passing along a jelly brain, don't sit in the front row! There are probably people who would gladly trade places with you.

So yes: if you're looking for something to do on a Friday through Sunday night, and can get over Hollywood-way, I highly recommend this as a grand night out, provided you are not averse to comedic horror and the possibility of brief boobage. They announced before our show that they've extended the run to the last weekend in June – this is the second time they've extended it, and many of the people we talked to in the packed house were coming back for seconds or thirds, so that should be evidence of its entertainment value if nothing else is.

There is only one clip of the show available on YouTube and it is, unfortunately, nearly unintelligible and much less polished than the actual show, so I don't want to link to it and give a bad impression. I will, however, give you a song that does NOT appear anywhere in the production but will give you a taste of how delightful an all-singing, all-dancing Reanimator can be:

When I went to colour the image above I realised I hadn't scanned the drawings I'd done last November, when plotting for my comic. So, I give you, a handful of Herberts! (and a Narrator.)