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Herbert west, the Re-Animator (Jeffrey Combs) is at it again (even
though he died at the end of Bride
of the Re-Animator) & revives corpses like nobody's business,
but unfortunately this time around one of his zombies (Ángel Plana) kills
a young woman (Bárbara Elorrieta), & the police ghets him for that.
13 years later: West is still in jail, trying his best to continue his
experiments to reawaken the dead under primitive, alnmost non-existent
conditions. Then though a new prison doctor, Howard (Jason Barry) starts
his work at the jail, & he knows about West (actually he was the
brother of the woman killed 13 years ago), but not only does he know about
hmk & his work, he has actually brought some of West's re-animation
serum (probybly the last in existence) with him & soon has West
persuaded to, together with him, continue the experiments ... &
occasion arises sooner than anyone thinks: In the prison yard Moses (Nico
Baixas) gets beaten up badly no 5 minutes after Howard has started his new
job, & he even dies before he reaches the infirmary. But West wouldn't
be West would he be able to let an opportunitzy go by, & before long
he has injected his serum into Moses & turned him into a violent
zombie, who can be confined to solitary only withthe greatest of efforts.
From here on, Howard is convinced of West's talents & soon the 2 build
themselves a neat little lab in an unused room behind the infirmary.
At around the same time, journalist Laura Olnay (Elsa Pataky) has
started writing about an article about the prison, & she soon has
figured Howard would be a safe bet for a good story, & the 2 soon
become lovers as well.
West soon discovers what went wrong with all his previous, violent
zombies ... he forgot to give them personality, & evetnually he finds
out how that is done, but at least has theorretically has little
reservatins giving humans rats' personalities, for him it's all the same
anyways.
Meanwhile, Laura has charmed the prison warden (Simón Andreu) into
giving her the grande tour through the psison & has soon also bribed a
guard into giving her access to Moses ... & from here on it goes
wrong: At first, naturally Moses attacks her, then the warden finds out
she's with Moses - the only place she's not supposed to be -, gets his ear
bitten off by Moses, then strangles her to death whiloe letting Moses
escape. & while Howard suddenly has to find his girlfriend dead on his
operating table, Moses the menacing zombie gone wild entices the other
convicts to start a prison revolt. & while theya are at it killing
guards, the warden finds West's & Howard's little lab, & actually
catches them eed-handed re-animating Laura. West soon knocks him out &
figures (since Howard refuses to five Laura a rat's personality) the
warden would be a perfect personality donor - even if, no especially if
that would mean the warden's death ...
... the personality transfer doesn't work too perfectly though, as
sometimes Laura is just the sweet Laura Howard has fallen in love with,
but at times she turns into a homicidal monster with superhuman strngth
... which is just as well because by now the clonvicts have taken over the
prison, & seeing her have nothing but rape on their minds ... &
eventually a bunch of them ends up cut to pieces.
Meanwhile West couldn't let another sleeping corpse lie & has
re-animated - of all people - the warden, who soon overcomes West &
uses his serum to his advantage, by killing a few convicts & guards
alike then re-animating them & put them into his services.
Wghen finally a SWAT-team storms the prison, pretty much everyone is
killed, & they find Howard leaning over Laura's body, just having cut
off her head (because she has begged him for it not wanting to become a
wild monster again), & arrest him.
But what about West ?
This time he got away, having assumed the identity of the prison doctor
to get throught the SWAT team ... & now everyone can only wonder where
corpses will start walking next.
Santiago Segura plays a constantly spaced out convict who, at one
point, even injects himself some re-animation serum while still alive, so
rather comical results.
Beyond Re-Animator is (of course) no match for the original Re-Animator,
but it is an improvement over Bride
of the Re-Animator, the second Re-Animator film:
where Bride of the Re-Animator
was episodic & full of references to the first film, Beyond
Re-Animator has a self-sufficient & stringent plot.
Taken by its own merits, Beyond Re-Animator is an enjoyably wild
& trashy mix of prison-, mad scientist- & zombie-clichés that
never takes itself too seriously while not invariably going for the cheap
laugh. & if you're not put off by gore, cut-off limbs, gross humour
& the occasional narrative inconsistency, this should make one and a
half hours of good entertainmant.
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