Re-Animator is one of the most enjoyable disgusting movies ever made. Where else can you expect to find a body carrying around it’s own severed head, forcing its/his affections on a naked girl strapped to a table? Probably nowhere. When I first met Bruce Abbott, the actor playing the most normal person in the film, I lamented to myself how much I’d love to meet the actor playing Herbert West, perhaps one of the strangest characters ever committed to any film. That day would eventually come over three years later on August 12, 2012.
Jeffrey Combs is that actor, and he’s made a full career out of playing unusual and eccentric characters. Star Trek fans might know him for the plethora of roles he’s played within the franchise (Shran in Star Trek: Enterprise, Weyoun and Brunt in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine). Like Re-Animator, another one of H.P. Lovecraft’s stories was developed into the film From Beyond – a second delightfully eccentric horror romp that featured Combs in the lead role.
I was ecstatic that I got to meet him, although I really didn’t have enough to say to him. I blabbered on about how I had met Bruce Abbott and how I had wished that he had been at the Chiller Theatre show with him. He told me that he had done other Chiller shows but hadn’t made it to that particular one. In any case, it was certainly a pleasant meeting, especially since he posed for a free photo with a purchase of the autograph.
The female lead in both Re-Animator and From Beyond was sitting at the table right next to his. Barbara Crampton was that ill-fated gal strapped to the table mentioned in the first paragraph. She looked great, but it was hard to picture her without that vile head harassing her. She’d also had a small role in another film that I enjoy, despite its banal reviews by the critics: Brian DePalma’s Body Double. Despite the fact that she’s had roles on several of the hit soap operas, she’s primarily known as a scream queen of the horror flicks.
Like her co-star Jeffrey Combs, she was very pleasant and wasn’t charging for a photo with her either. Since that severed head fella David Gale passed away in 1991, Combs and Crampton completed my Re-Animator quest. That alone made this quite a swell day.
This concludes the celebrity encounters of the 2012 Flashback Weekend. Click here to return to the original posting…
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