VISUAL VENGEANCE BLU-RAY RELEASE: Reanimator Academy (1992)

Reanimator Academy (1992): Edgar Allan Lovecraft (Steve Westerheit) is the brainy outcast of the hard-partying Delta Epsilon Delta Fraternity, and now, he’s invented — you guessed it — a reanimator formula.

In the video store era, the box art and title were all you needed. So if you combine video rental favorites Police Academy and Re-Animator, you get this.

The Delta Epsilon Delta (DED) frat is all about partying. Except for the aforementioned Edgar Allan Lovecraft, who is busy bringing a severed head named Fred back to life, which brings in a local gangster, Mugsy, who wants Edgar to do the same for his girl, Hotlips (executive producer Connier Speer, who was also in Nail Gun Massacre). Things don’t go to plan as the reanimated gangster’s moll starts killing the student body. Can Edgar, Mugsy, his henchman Bruno, and Fred the severed head stop her?

Directed and written by Judith Priest — a one-and-done talent who may or may not be someone else — this was set up by Fred Olen Ray with David DeCoteau (using the name Ellen Cabot, which comes from an episode of Batman) producing. The instructions? “Give a good title and make it 70 minutes and horror.”

Shot on 8mm consumer format with a two-month turnaround from script to final product, it was shot over a weekend. And there was a Super VHS on hand to edit the dailies. It was co-written by Benton Jennings, who was also Bruno.  He’s also in tons of movies and TV shows: Highway to Hell, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Profiler, Dexter, Scrubs, How I Met Your Mother, American Carol, the soap opera Passions, Our Flag Means Death, and I Think You Should Leave. He also played Alex Trebek’s dead body on Jimmy Kimmel in addition to Hitler on that show, a role he’d play again in Poolboy: Drowning In Fury. He was also the historical consultant on Frontier: The Decisive Battles and Last of the Mohicans.

This movie has so many talented people making it, including Greg Synodis, who composed the music for this and “Highway to Hell,” and made the music videos for “Ice Ice Baby” and “Play That Funky Music” for Vanilla Ice. There’s also JP Black, who shot and starred in Redneck County Fever, as well as assistant director Richard Perrin, who was in Bret McCormick’s Blood On the Badge and Fred Williamson’s Steele’s Law. Plus, you get Fred the Head, who has a list of credits a forehead long. He was in Head, A Bullet to the Head, Sergeant Deadhead, A Hole In the Head, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and Hush…Hush Sweet Charlotte. Virginia Leith is his mom, or so he says.

Released to video on February 28, 1992, this was filmed in Fort Worth, Texas — a clue to who the person who made this is, and shows up in the Tomb of Terrors box set along with such other incredible movies as Demon Sex, Granny, Gorno: An American Tragedy, Kill the Scream Queen, The Night Owl, Purvos, Redneck County Fever, Sorority Babes in the Dance-A-Thon of Death and Barely Legal Lesbian Vampires.

Is this made by movie lovers? All I can say is that in the frat house scene, you can see posters for Zachariah, Terror Circus (Barn of the Naked Dead), School Spirit and America 3000.

Children of Dracula (1994): When I spoke to Bret McCormick, I had not seen this movie yet and wanted to know more.

B&S: You’ve also made some docs, like Children of Dracula, which seems ahead of its time now in shining a light on a culture some would see as aberrant. What was that process like?

BRET: We ran ads in an alternative newspaper in Dallas and one in LA and then screened through the respondents. It was a very quick production. I was very glad Joe Estevez agreed to narrate. I didn’t take it very seriously at the time.

I’m so glad that Visual Vengeance has been released this.

“Are you a Vampire? Vampire’s victim? Have fantasies about Vampires?” That’s the ad that circulated in major Los Angeles and Dallas newspapers and got hundreds of responses. After all, Interview With a Vampire had come out that year.

Directed by McCormick and Christopher Romero, this has a series of people who explain how they either became fascinated by vampires or became one. Well, one lady can only make raw bacon and eat it, which doesn’t seem to be the kind of life that we were promised by the Hammer films, but what can you do?

One of the people who shows up in this is Tony Brownrigg, the son of S.F. Brownrigg and Libby Hall. He’s acted in quite a few films and made a sequel to one of his father’s films with Don’t Look In the Basement 2.

There are also trailers spaced throughout that include The Twilight People, Andy Warhol’s Dracula, and The Velvet Vampire, which are all great picks if you want different perspectives on how movies deal with vampirism.

In the days before basic cable became, well, a lot like this movie, these are the films that you’d find in the horror section of your mom-and-pop rental store, but they may not have had a true home. Most of those shops didn’t have a documentary section. I would have totally rented this, yes, made a copy of it, and made people watch it, and laughed when they thought I was strange because I had memorized so many of the interviews.

First time ever on disc following its initial VHS release! This has a transfer from existing SD tape masters and features commentary from Sam Panico of B&S About Movies and Bill Van Ryn of Drive-In Asylum; an interview with director Bret McCormick; a location tour; an interview with actor Tom Fegan and Fred the Head; a feature on the score; the director’s 2023 soundtrack cut; Bret McCormick’s Children of Dracula; a Q&A; a folded mini-poster; a reversible sleeve featuring original VHS art; a “Stick Your Own” set of VHS stickers, limited edition slipcase art by Giorgio Credaro and a limited edition video store card. You can get it from MVD.