by Jason Adams
Why's it so hard to put the work of H.P. Lovecraft on the screen? Over 80 years since the writer died it's real weird (an appropriate word in this context) to me that there's never been a truly grand-scale adaptation of his begging-for-just-that work, especially given how timely they do feel here in the 21st century as reality seems to morph into madness. Guillermo Del Toro notoriously tried for a decade to get At the Mountains of Madness off the ground to no avail, but that's the closest Hollywood has as yet come. Before theaters shut down in early 2020 we did get an unofficial HPL turn with Kristen Stewart in Underwater (which I truly dug) and we're now right this minute three episodes into the HBO series Lovecraft Country, which... well I'm waiting to see how that goes. Situating Lovecraft's profound racism against American race relations is hella smart, so I keep hope alive it will find its footing. (This latest episode felt like a tentacle squish in the right direction.)
In my talk there of notable Lovecraft adaptations I purposefully skipped over the hilariously disgusting 80s works of writer-director-madman Stuart Gordon though, in order to bring us to the subject of this week's edition of our "Great Moments in Horror Actressing" series, which is Scream Queen and Horror Icon Barbara Crampton's turn as the "bubble-headed co-ed" Megan in 1985's Re-Animator... (Which, without venturing into spoilers for Lovecraft Country, this week's episode actually shared some adaptation DNA with.) Let's give this goddess her damn due!
Because Leonardo DiCaprio eating raw bison liver ain't got nothing on what Barbara Crampton was asked to do in Re-Animator, and yet who won the Oscar? This is what happens when you quantify suffering for the sake of art -- I don't mean Oscars are what happens (although, obviously). I mean that we get ourselves an understanding as to what counts as "suffering" to our culture, and whose "suffering" we care about. Thirty-five years on Crampton's kept her good humor about what her character goes through in this movie's last act and, well, not to say I'd rather watch Barbara Crampton suffer, but... yes I would? At least Gordon & Co are putting the concept of suffering through the ringer and squeezing out some yuks. (And some "yucks.")
As quoted above the character of Megan is indeed at one point described in the film as a "bubblehead" which has always raised my hackles. But that line reading from Jeffrey Combs' unmoored (to put it mildly) character of Dr. Herbert West, coming as it does at a particularly sensitive moment, is there to remind us that even among all of the bloodthirsty naked zombies currently pawing around on the screen it's West himself who is the film's villain, because Megan, as played by Crampton, is anything but. She's a dream, and remains such all these years later.
The film, very much of its time, relishes leering pervily at Crampton with her clothes off, that's surely true. But there were naked actresses everywhere in low-budget horror movies during this period, so why is Barbara Crampton the one who's stood the test of time? Re-watching Re-animator for the ten thousandth time last night I was reminded how much heart and soul she injects (heh) into the campily lurid proceedings -- for a stereotypical "girl in danger" Megan's heartbreak over her father's death feels genuinely genuine, and Crampton more than anybody manages to get across the idea at the dark heart of Lovecraft's work, of a rational decent mind coming completely unhinged. Her screams, the stuff of queens, ring true, and rain down through the cavernous hallways of time and space and sanity itself...
