4 Ways the Re - Animator H.P. Lovecraft Story is Different from the Movie

I can't believe I had no idea about the short story to this movie. The fact that this movie is based on H.P. Lovecraft was the biggest hint I could have possibly gotten...and I still didn't know! While I was reading the short story from a recent H.P. Lovecraft collection I was able to get my hands on, I decided to write down every single difference from the book.

Re - Animator has remained one of my most favorite Lovecraft horror films of all time, and I was so happy I was able to read H.P Lovecraft's vision of the story. While the movie did a modernized version of it, I still enjoyed the old school Victorian version Lovecraft did for the story. And the best part, was that I finally got to learn why the movie version was so dark, the story itself is quite a disturbing tale!

The themes of 'trying to beat death' was still strongly there, and made the short story so entertaining to read.

4. Herbert's assistant never had a girlfriend in the story.

Herbert's assistant in the book (who is never named) was honestly so damn smart, compared to his assistant in the movie, named Dan. His assistant knew enough to never involve any other person in his dangerous experiments with West, because he would always acknowledge that their work wasn't for the faint of heart.

He knew their actions weren't ethical, but he continued to help West, because he genuinely wanted to help with his experiments.

Seriously, this guy was smart to never have anyone else into his life. He made sure that no significant other of his was going to fall into the mad world of Dr. Herbert West.

3. Herbert and his assistant worked on a military base to continue their experiments.

This idea sounds freaking awesome, and I'm so sad no other movie in the franchise ever thought about using this idea. This was a genius move to conduct their experiments on a military base putting their troops at war, because back in the Victorian era, I'm sure they would not to be able to link their DNA or mad experiments to the bodies that would mysteriously come back from the dead.

I would love to see a future movie in the franchise with the concept of the military base! Hopefully the future remake to Re - Animator will consider this idea!

2. The dead West brought back were intelligent.

In my opinion, the dead were even more terrifying in the short story. Herbert's assistant strongly suspected that some of the dead they had brought back were now hunting Dr. West, that led to extreme paranoia. This turned out to be true, and the leader of the dead, was a soldier they had brought back from the military base.

How the dead were able to hide after scaring the crap out of the living is so scary to think about. They knew how to evade authorities, and stay in hiding as they searched for West.

While the dead were scary in numbers and had superhuman strength in the film, the thought of them also being smart is awful to think about. None of the characters in the movie would ever have stood a chance.

1. Herbert West dies in the short story.

While his fate is left up in the air toward the end of the movie, the short story does indeed confirm his actual death. The dead show up to the residence of Herbert and his assistant, and in front of his comrade, they rip West to pieces. The dead never stopped searching for him, because they wanted revenge for bringing them back to life.

The story ends with Herbert now having to live with the memory of his madness, as he thinks back on all the bad experiments he had conducted with the now dead West.

I really enjoyed the short story. Despite all of the huge differences, the book was just as awesome as the movie. Both versions did a fantastic job with the Lovecraft horror concept!

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Thank you for reading!

Emy Quinn