FILM GUTTER REVIEWS: THE REJUVENATOR (1988)

THE REJUVENATOR (1988)
Dir. Brian Thomas Jones, 90 mins​

It’s time for a deep delve into the VHS archive here, and a look back at a late 80s movie that took its cues from various other places – yes, it’s time for a look at The Rejuvenator. This one is not terribly well known, and has a little of the look and feel of something like Reanimator. But does this one live up to that standard? Well, let’s look a little deeper…

The Rejuvenator follows the story of scientist Dr Gregory Ashton, who is working on an exprimental serum to extend people’s lives, a sort of fountain of youth. They’re currently at the animal experimentation phase, and all seems to be going reasonably well. His main benefactor is aging actress Elizabeth Warren, who is funding his efforts in the desperate hope of getting back to her heyday and resurrect the acting career that made her so rich and famous. Early on in the movie, she delivers a stern ultimatum – either inject her with the serum as a live subject or she will withdraw her funding. Dr Gregory is unwilling, but decides that it’s all he can do to keep his project alive – and in fact the first injection of the serum seems to go incredibly well, with Elizabeth reverting back to her younger self and even a little splash of romance between our two leads (with classic 80s music to boot). But sadly the effect of the serum fades away all too quickly, and Elizabeth quickly devolves into a terrible monster. And with the constant risk of his test subject turning into a hideous creature, Gregory becomes ever more desperate to find more and more serum. But there is one running problem – the raw ingredient for the serum can only be found in human brain matter, and as Elizabeth needs more and more with her tolerance growing all the time, Gregory starts to resort to desperate measures…

The Rejuvenator absolutely screams late 80s in every frame, which I don’t really mind that much, and there are certainly things to like here. The acting performances are generally solid – if nothing particularly special – and the actual core concept is a fairly interesting one that has been explored many times in horror film before and since. And this is a reasonable exploration of the ideas of science going too far, and playing god, and what risks are you willing to take to advance the human species. The effects actually look reasonably decent – maybe apart from one or two little moments towards the end of the movie – and I think that most horror viewers would find this one perfectly likeable. I’ve seen better, no doubt, but it kept my attention and entertained me fine, so you can’t ask too much more than that.

There are some drawbacks, with all that said – one or two moments do lapse into cliché, especially with Gregory’s superior sniffing round his suspicious work that so many 80s movie villains liked to do. The assistant role is rather underplayed, and felt like a character you could certainly have done more with, and the same would go for Elizabeth’s butler Wilhelm. But on the whole it’s a nice neat and tidy horror movie that’s unlikely to rock your world but leave you reasonably satisfied by the same token.

RATING: 6/10. This one was fun enough in that distinctly late 80s way, doing many of the things that were pretty emblematic of horror in that time. It’s a decent example all told, and you will no doubt have seen plenty worse, especially if you’re a hardened fan of the genre. The story is solid and makes sense throughout, and has a strong concept at the heart of it that is explored well enough. There’s nothing really wrong anywhere with it – everything ranges from being OK to fairly good without any elements really verging into the great or excellent. I wouldn’t go out of my way to check it out, but this one certainly won’t ruin your evening if you decide to give it a watch. It may not be one to rejuvenate you, but it certainly won’t do you any harm to check this out either. 6/10 for this one all told.