Bride of Re-Animator: The Homoerotic History of Re-Animator (Part II)
When asking your average horror fan which 1980s classic has the most homoerotic sequel, the image of scream queen Jesse Walsh screeching “He’s inside me, and he wants to take me again!” in A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 likely springs to mind first. And while Freddy’s Revenge’s infamously gold-standard gay reputation is more than earned, the image of Herbert West proposing to Dan Cain with his dead girlfriend’s heart should pop up in people’s minds next as a solid second place.
In Part II of this essay series exploring Re-Animator’s homoerotic legacy, we will be delving into perhaps the queerest entrant of the film franchise Bride of Re-Animator, along with notable cast and crew interviews that both confirm and (poorly) deny the fruity allegations, the no-homo failure of a sequel known as Beyond Re-Animator, and the sequel that never saw the light of day that hinted at a morbidly queer future for our favourite mad science duo, House of Re-Animator. If you missed out on or would like a refresher on Part I of this essay series which covers H.P. Lovecraft’s Herbert West: Re-Animator, Re-Animator (1985), Re-Animator: The Novelization and more, be sure to check it out!
Now without further ado, as Herbert West said to another man before trying for a baby, “Let’s get to work”.
PART II: “OTHERS DARE NOT DREAM WHAT WE ARE ABOUT TO DO”
Released 32 years ago today in the United States, Bride of Re-Animator stretches the “straight” in straight-to-video. Now in the hands of former Re-Animator producer Brian Yuzna as opposed to Stuart Gordon, while Bride is a messier affair that lacks in narrative cohesion compared to its predecessor (Didn’t we see Herbert West get strangled to death by Hill’s intestines? And wasn’t Hill’s head squished to a bloody pulp?) the film more than makes up for these missteps through amping up both the grotesque special effects and through elevating the franchise’s pre-established gay subtext between our two leading lab partners.
Whereas in the first film where Cain’s enchantment by West and their shared interest in the potential of his reagent can be interpreted as the feelings one experiences at the start of a budding new relationship, by Bride of Re-Animator their experiments together are now routine, the two men coming across more as an old bickering married couple with West desperately trying to bring back, or rather, reanimate, the spark in their relationship. After the horrific events of the Miskatonic Massacre eight months prior, the toxically codependent relationship between West and Cain grows tenfold, to the point where the two men are so deeply intwined in each other’s lives that they are practically inseparable. The pair go to war together in Peru as volunteer medics, work together both professionally and personally through being doctors at Miskatonic University Hospital and partners in their reanimation experiments, and West now even shares credit for his life’s work, describing his serum to Dan as “Our reagent”. Above all else however, the two men are still living together — this time, in a house they bought together. Truly a whirlwind romance.
“Home” and the domesticity that comes along with it play a significant role in Bride of Re-Animator’s plot, with the physical state of the two men’s domicile symbolically representing the state of their relationship, slowly falling apart and on the verge of collapsing in on itself. Herbert repeatedly emphasizes the importance of home to Dan throughout the film such as when he gently urges him to go home after one of his patients Gloria does not survive Dan’s attempt to save her. West and Cain’s domestic life together is even riffed about between their actors in the film’s commentary track, with Jeffrey Combs interjecting during one of Dan and Herbert’s arguments with “And put the cap back on the toothpaste!”, along with Bruce Abbott quipping “Love the apron, Betty!” with Combs replying “Yeah, thank you darling!” during one of the film’s many homoerotic shots.
The domestic entanglement between the two main characters is all the more highlighted when Herbert goes with the oldest trick in the book in order to win Dan back and continue their work together — having a baby to save the marriage. After Dan metaphorically attempts to break up with Herbert through telling him that he wants to move out, we see the unshakeable confidence of the spectacled scientist temporarily shatter, genuinely taken aback and hurt by the concept of their separation. In an act of desperation West quietly asks, “Daniel, what was it about Meg that you loved?” before offering him Megan’s heart in his hands. The scene visually reflects a marriage proposal, all the more heightened by the fact that Herbert is quite literally proposing to Dan an idea: to recreate his former lover through piecing her together through various women’s body parts. As Herbert disliked Megan while she was alive and shows no interest outside of jealousy towards all the women in Dan’s life, it is clear that the Bride is not meant for the Re-Animator one would expect from the film’s title — the groom is instead Dan Cain.
The one and only facet of Dan Cain’s life that Herbert West has no control over and is not a part of is his sex life, and it is not from Herbert’s lack of trying. Herbert is constantly at the edge of infiltrating Dan’s sex life, through showing up on his doorstep mere moments after he and Megan finish having sex in the first film (with Dan still being naked at the start of their interaction), the scrapped nightmare scene involving Dan dreaming about Herbert seductively egging him on to have sex with his newly re-animated girlfriend, and later on in Bride where Herbert walks in on Dan and his new flame Francesca in bed together. Creating the Bride is Herbert’s way of entry into Dan’s love life — If Herbert cannot provide Dan with the normalcy he longs for (read: traditional heterosexuality) they will masquerade it together through their queerness through the creation of the Bride. As Harry M. Benshoff states in Monsters in the Closet: Homosexuality and the Horror Film, “Heterosexualized necrophilia is the queer desire that can be named; homosexuality can only be suggested through a camp aesthetic manifested in performance, design and reception” (212).
Much like how Herbert’s experiments do not fully replicate life (despite his protests of the contrary), Herbert’s odd obsession with domesticity does not replicate its traditionally heteronormative connotations — it is off, or rather, queered. By creating Dan’s love interest with his own hands, Herbert maintains control and fully becomes Dan’s world, free from outside distractions and influence. One could even argue that because Herbert came up with and physically created the Bride himself that she is meant to be an extension of him. This is symbolically eluded to in the film through the parallelism of West and the Bride extending the same heart towards Dan, the film bookended with both characters offering him “their” heart as a proposal.
As Herbert lays a sheet down on the operating table and rests Meg’s heart on top of it, Bruce Abbott in Bride’s commentary track remarks “This really borders on being sexual for Herbert. Very much so”. Indeed, the scene almost feels as though Herbert is making up their bed, in preparation for the conception of their own creation.
There are two main “beds” shown in Dan and Herbert’s home, Dan’s and the operating table the Bride is made on. Through the absence of Herbert’s bed and the sexual subtext rife in re-animation itself, the operating table could metaphorically represent “their bed”, as that is where the two men through the injection of a primordial fluid create life together without the aid of a woman. This subtext adds layers to Herbert’s reaction to seeing Dan having sex with Francesca, the palpable jealousy, sadness and sense of betrayal feeling akin to a cheating scene.
Before his date with Francesca (a date that Dan interestingly forgets about while swept up in his work with Herbert), the two doctors bicker while tinkering away at their bride, with Herbert urging Dan to be careful in order to avoid experiencing any “premature re-animation”. Blood abruptly spurting out of their specimen, Cain immediately chastises West, who looks down in embarrassment. This is one of many instances in the film where while operating with West blood spurts out either on or towards Cain, the man even getting a facial painted on him later on in the hospital. As director Roberta Findlay said in a featurette for her horror film Blood Sisters, “You know the money shots in porn films? Well, this was just a different substance: it was red”.
Interrupted by Francesca ringing their doorbell upstairs, Herbert quietly sighs to himself, practically pouting in disappointment as Dan leaves for his date. In a moment of “I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave” Herbert gazes at some eye candy while Dan takes off his scrubs, revealing his chiselled form.
While Dan and Francesca enjoy their date upstairs, Herbert is left seething downstairs, alone and exasperatedly sighing and rolling his eyes like a bitter jealous girlfriend. In the commentary track Combs claims that West is only irritated with Dan over him being easily distracted from their work, challenging Bruce Abbott’s comment regarding West’s subtextual homoerotic jealousy, leaving Abbott to joke, “Well some psychologists may care to go deeper!” As the couple begin to have sex, West pieces together a creation he will later dub a “reject”, a woman’s leg grafted onto a male’s arm. Herbert gazes longingly upwards after witnessing the male hand grip onto the operating table’s sheets, only for the female leg to kick him in the face, perhaps snapping him out of a brief private fantasy.
The bulk of West’s “reject” experiments later discovered hidden inside the walls of the crypt, including the arm/leg creature, are monstrous amalgamations of men and women sewn together, a sick parody of heterosexual intercourse likely born from West’s pent-up sexual frustration. This theory is further illustrated in a powerful moment of heterophobia as West denounces this abhorrent heterosexual union by shoving it into the trash, the image of the writhing trash bag cross dissolving into Dan and Francesca writhing together in bed.
Venturing upstairs when curiosity gets the best of him, Herbert stands in confused heartbreak as Dan and Francesca share a tender moment together in bed. The lighting of the staircase casts a prison bars-esque shadow behind West, representative of both his repressed nature and the fact that he is peering out into a world he is not allowed entry in. As dreamy lighting and a romantic score accompany their heterosexual lovemaking, the score grows more sinister as the gay-coded West slinks back into the darkness, sadly holding his heart while walking down the stairs, back to “where he belongs” as a straight man’s “dirty secret”. A police officer waiting for Herbert downstairs only strengthens the scene’s gay implications — heterosexual copulation is a natural, normalized phenomenon whereas queer experimentation must be punished.
Later on when Francesca dares to venture into the unknown underbelly of Dan’s home, Herbert strictly informs her that her welcome “Does not extend to this part of the house”, forbidding her entry into their metaphorical bedroom. Upon witnessing the queer monstrosity behind bolted doors, she shrieks and angrily calls Dan a “freak” before running away in terror. The insult rings even more as a homophobic slur once Dan and Herbert are alone, and West, queeny as ever in his baby blue surgical gown, bitchily lisps “You’re better off without her” as he once again stares at Dan’s shirtless muscular physique.
The homoerotic tension building the entire film reaches its climax in the final stages of the Bride’s creation, wherein Herbert clings onto Dan begging him not to abandon him in the final hour. What follows can only be described as a seduction scene as West sensually describes every body part of their frankensteined woman to a captivated Cain, complete with West using Dan’s pillow-talk line to Francesca on him, staring at him while describing the Bride’s skin as “so soft, so warm”. Joe Bob Briggs makes a special note of this scene in his interview with Jeffrey Combs in The Last Drive In episode of Bride of Re-Animator, saying that Herbert’s laborious description of the Bride’s parts is him seducing Dan and “turning him on”.
Seemingly unable to leave his side, once again weak to West’s advances, Dan agrees to go forward, and the Bride’s re-animation is set in motion. During this time, the notoriously confident scientist is noticeably acting strange, a timid nervous energy radiating off of him while he struggles to make eye contact, gulping while saying “I think we’re ready, Dan”. While the two men are no strangers to a symbolic reagent-related sex scene (one might recall West begging for Dan to penetrate him with his needle in the Integral Cut of Re-Animator), Herbert behaves almost like a virgin about to experience his first time in this scene. As Herbert is about to take the plunge and inject the Bride with reagent, Dan grabs his hand and stops him, giving him a smouldering look while saying the words Herbert has been waiting to hear all along: “Let me”.
The devotion Herbert has yearned for finally being realized through Cain fully committing himself to West and their work together, he hands over the syringe in pure awe. Gripping the other man’s shoulder and shakily breathing while Dan administers the reagent, it is almost as though he himself can feel Dan sticking it in. The Bride’s symbolic purpose as Herbert’s gateway into Dan’s romantic life culminates in a shot where Dan the Bride and Herbert are all “holding hands”, with Herbert grabbing Dan’s hand first before taking the Bride’s.
One of the most famous scenes from the film for LGBTQ+ audiences occurs after Francesca accuses Herbert West of blasphemy. Dramatically retaliating with a powerful speech harkening back to the mad scientists of the Universal Monster era, West declares “I will not be shackled by the failures of your God. The only blasphemy is to wallow away in insignificance. I have taken refuse of your God’s failures and I have triumphed”. Whether interpreted as one transcending a restrictive gender binary and viewing the body as one’s own malleable creation, or as fighting back against homophobic ideology regarding gay marriage/parenting, the scene resinates strongly with queer audiences, making us root for West even harder.
Fascinatingly, this reference to blasphemy bears similarity to a line from Dr. Pretorius in the original shooting script of Bride of Frankenstein, with Pretorius asserting, “Those who experiment in the creation of living organisms have been accused of blasphemy. Of course, as you and I, and all men of earning know, such accusations are only made by the narrow, the bigoted, and the superstitious”. The resemblance of these quotes reveal a long and deeply queer history going all the way back to the original story of Frankenstein, giving even more weight to the queer undertones of West’s speech. The Frankenstein novel, written by bisexual author Mary Shelley in 1818, was adapted for the screen by gay director James Whale in 1931, whose sequel starred rumoured homosexual actor Ernest Thesiger as the gay-coded Dr. Pretorius in 1935, whose code-censored words would be echoed proudly decades later by our very own Herbert West.
Unfortunately however, West’s moment of iconic queer defiance is dampened by the film reverting back to the classical horror generic convention of heteronormativity surviving through the vanquishing of the evil queer force. Whereas in the first film where both Herbert and Meg are both killed from the events of the Miskatonic Massacre, subverting expectations by leaving Dan Cain as the final boy, here Dan and his newfound lover Francesca claw their way out from the collapsing crypt, whereas Herbert is left to die in the rubble. Fitting too that before West’s demise he is ambushed by symbolic forces against queer people, such as his male/female reject experiments (straight people) and the now zombified police officer “arresting him”, all orchestrated by a man who attempted to lobotomize the gay-coded West in the previous film, Dr. Carl Hill. Despite Cain being more than complicit through his partnership with West, his ties to heterosexuality allow him to live, whereas West’s queer villainy results in him being irredeemable, and is therefore (once again) doomed to the narrative.
Although the film suffers from a weak continuity error-riddled script (can you believe they wrote this in less than a month? I sure can!) the homoeroticism surrounding West and Cain’s relationship is truly the glue, or rather, “primordial ooze” that holds it all together. From the longing stares and physical touches between our two male leads to the abundant hilariously queer moments such as when Herbert answers with silence to a hospital staff member asking him if a female patient was attractive, Bride of Re-Animator is redeemed through its incredible camp value, making it one of the greatest gay cult classics the horror genre has to offer.
Bride of Re-Animator’s gay subtext is so unavoidable it has seemingly been acknowledged by all significant cast and crew members and is practically a special feature of Arrow’s 2016 Blu-Ray release of the film. Included with every copy is an essay entitled “Here Comes The Bride” by BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival programmer Michael Blyth that discusses the film’s queer subtext openly, stating in one passage, “This obsession with non-traditional conception infuses these films (Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein) with a gay subtext, offering early examples of the on-screen domestic homosexual couple and possibilities of gay parenting, something which can similarly be witnessed the relationship between West and Cain” (13). Blyth also argues that Combs delivers a camp performance that “does often feel as though West bears a repressed sexual attraction towards his colleague” (16).
As previously discussed, actors Bruce Abbott and Jeffrey Combs also poke fun of and take note of the film’s homoeroticism in their commentary track together, enhanced even more by Combs continuously interjecting with “You look buff, babe!” and “Buff, baby!” whenever Dan Cain shows up on-screen shirtless. Compared to Abbott however, Combs appears less than enthused at the idea of interpreting Herbert West as queer, evidenced in his appearance on The Last Drive In with Joe Bob Briggs, where Combs denies Briggs’ conclusion that West is jealous of Cain’s girlfriends because the two men share “more than brotherly feelings”, saying “Are you suggesting some sort of homoerotic fascination here that kind of doesn’t exist?” How one can put on gay blinders while watching Bride of Re-Animator is baffling to me, but even Combs cannot argue when Briggs remarks that Herbert West “is just not interested in women at all” and that the film shines during scenes of the two men acting like an “old married couple” (Combs chiming in by calling him and Cain “The Bickersons”). While this episode was aired live, famous horror magazine Fangoria even got in on the action, referencing the very vocal queer viewers rooting for their favourite partners-in-crime in one of their tweets.
In 2021 during an Instagram Q&A, director, co-writer and producer Brian Yuzna was asked directly about whether he viewed Bride of Re-Animator as containing a gay subtext, to which he responded with what is practically a queer essay of his own on the subject matter.
Hoo boy… Let’s unpack this. From Yuzna’s perspective, while there is validity in a queer reading of the text, Dan Cain cannot be gay due to his interest in women in the series (the existence of bisexuals apparently slipping Yuzna’s mind) and that the jury is still out on Herbert West, who in his opinion could be queer, but is more likely staunchly asexual. Yuzna’s comments reflect a quote from the 1987 Re-Animator novelization, the passage reading “West was strange… but Cain was not. No, he didn’t think they were gay. At least not Cain” (Rovin, 136).
The most shocking revelation from Yuzna’s response is the reference to a “fellatio tape” between Herbert West and Dan Cain. The existence of this VHS video may even be hinted at between the two actors themselves in the commentary track during the end credits, as the two men slyly giggle about the “good time” they had during their downtime between shots, Abbott joking that the two worked on “Amateur film projects of (their) own”. The actors conclude that they hope that these mysterious “projects” are “secure in some vault somewhere” and never see the light of day. #ReleaseTheFellatioCut.
Learning nothing from his last attempt at a sequel, Brian Yuzna in a genius move decided to remove the most successful quality of Bride of Re-Animator, the electrifying chemistry between his two leads, in the forgettable third film of the trilogy Beyond Re-Animator (2003). While Cain was initially envisioned in the original script as requiring an imprisoned West’s assistance in a murder trial, here he is only mentioned once in passing, resulting in Bruce Abbott being completely omitted from the film’s prison plot. Cain’s absence is explained away by Herbert to his newfound assistant, Dan’s hollow replacement Howard Phillips, coldly stating “My last partner turned state’s evidence against me”. Dan Cain testifying against Herbert West in court? Talk about a messy divorce.
Substituting Bruce Abbott for new unlikable characters and even more unnecessary sexual assault (really, did this franchise need any more of that?) Beyond Re-Animator is a tragic affair, paling in comparison to its wildly creative and campy predecessors and offering little to no redeeming qualities, apart from Jeffrey Combs’ refusal to turn in a lacklustre performance. As Jeffrey Combs once praised, “(Bruce Abbott) is sort of an unsung hero. Herbert West wouldn’t be Herbert West if he didn’t have Dan — so don’t forget Bruce Abbott”. If only Brian Yuzna had gotten that memo.
While Beyond Re-Animator marks the disappointing end of a disjointed mixed bag of a trilogy, the fourth instalment that never saw the light of day, House of Re-Animator, offered queer fans both a reunion of their favourite horror partnership and a hopeful future for their strained relationship. Originally taking place during the Bush administration, the proposed film centred on the death of the President of the United States (or the Vice President in other treatments of the script) with West and Cain being tasked with reanimating him. As West was last seen escaping during Beyond Re-Animator’s prison riot and had since gone into hiding, the U.S. government kidnaps Dan in order to provide them with the serum. Unable to produce the reagent on his own, Cain is successfully able to lure West out of hiding through a blow to his ego, by publishing a press release taking credit for Herbert’s research. Successfully able to reel the plagiarist-loathing scientist out of hiding, the “dream team” is back, and the weird science we all know and love begins.
Screenwriter Dennis Paoli stated in conversation with Bloody Disgusting in 2020 that outside of political commentary the film would have primarily focused on the “new relationship between Dan and Herbert” despite their blood-soaked history. While not much else is known about House of Re-Animator’s plot, (presumably because the creators maintain hope that one day the story will be produced in some form), what is known is that the ending would have seen one of our two mad doctors die from the Oval Office carnage and that West or Cain would bring the other back to life. Had Herbert been the character chosen to get the axe, the film franchise would have gone full circle, with the first and last films ending with Dan Cain attempting to save the life of someone he cares about, first his girlfriend and then his partner. This direct parallel between both film’s endings and the fact that Dan Cain has only ever been shown to re-animate subjects out of love (previously discussed in Part I of this essay), the Re-Animator franchise would have ended on a wickedly queer note, with Cain reaffirming his devotion to West and the duo living on to continue disrupting the heteronormative world they live in through their blasphemous creations. As the old saying goes, “’Til death do us.. part?”
While piecing together the Bride, Dan snaps at Herbert, questioning “What are we doing here, anyway? Why don’t we just publish our findings, we could get grant money!” to which West is quick to cooly reply “Because they would never understand our methods”. Throughout the entire Re-Animator canon an emphasis is placed on the closeted existence Dan and Herbert are forced to live in, from sneaking around in the dark behind the backs of the authority figures in their lives, committing their sacrilegious experimentation behind closed doors hidden far away in basements, and their work existing only as a shared secret between each other, lest they be persecuted for expressing their lifestyle openly and proudly. Benshoff elaborating in Monsters in the Closet, “Together the mad scientist and his sidekick become a major generic convention that is easily read as queer: the secret experiments they conduct together are chronicled in private diaries and kept locked away in closed cupboards and closets” (48).
Almost every key player in the Re-Animator film series has in some way acknowledged the franchise’s gay subtext. Stuart Gordon had described Frankenstein stories as being “masturbatory” as they involve men excluding women from the act of creating life, Dennis Paoli believes that many of Lovecraft’s stories contain homoerotic relationships, and Brian Yuzna has said that Herbert West may be queer, “at least to the degree that such common mortal desires remain in him”. Even the core cast of the films have all weighed in, with Barbara Crampton arguing that “Megan and Herbert West were foes fighting for the same man” in Re-Animator and Bruce Abbott imploring for a deeper analysis regarding Herbert’s intense jealousy towards Dan’s romantic affairs in Bride. Even Jeffrey Combs, who out of everyone mentioned is the most vocally against this particular reading, was the same man who “feign(ed) fellatio on his costar”.
For queer Re-Animator fans, as much as we all enjoy deeply analyzing the gay undertones of this series (coughs), many of us would agree that not much digging truly has to be done. Unlike the crimes Herbert and Dan commit together in their secret laboratory, the evidence for their potential feelings for one another is right out in the open: The lingering looks, the couple melodrama, the tender touches, and perhaps most importantly the strange and seemingly undying devotion the two scientists seem to have for one another (even when Cain turned state’s evidence against West, he still later saves his life). Eloquently summarized by Jeffrey Combs in Bride of Re-Animator’s commentary track, West and Cain truly are “comrades in science”.
