Since its release at the mid-point of the 1980s American horror boom, Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator (1985) has endured as one of the most beloved cult horror films of that era. Greeted by enthusiastic early reviews, Re-Animator has maintained a spot at the periphery of the classic horror film canon. While Re-Animator has not entirely gone without critical attention, it has often been overshadowed in horror studies by more familiar titles from the period. Eddie Falvey’s book, which represents the first book-length study of Re-Animator, repositions it as one of the most significant American horror films of its era. For Falvey, Re-Animator sits at the intersection of various developments that were taking place within the context of 1980s American horror production. He uses Re-Animator to explore the rise and fall of Charles Band’s Empire Pictures, the revival of the mad science sub-genre, the emergent popularity of both gore aesthetics and horror-comedies, as well as a new appetite for the