To me, this movie is perfection.

Just perfect...

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) just can't stop trying to bring the dead back to life using his neon green experimental serum, with a corpse (without its mouth) attacking the sister of a boy in their kitchen. West is arrested and sent away to a nasty warden's (Simón Andreu) prison, somewhat prevented from continuing his experiments. He has developed a type of "nanoplasm" which might can correct the deranged reactions of the green serum on humans after they die…too bad this nanoplasm, like the green liquid, has certain "side effects". Nanoplasm must be "extracted" through electrocution from one life form and then transplanted to another…what this does is transfer the actual presence of the one into the other. The boy who witnessed his daughter's death has grown into a doctor (Jason Barry, top five of his class) and received a post at the very prison West is interred. He wants to work with West, still holding onto a vial of his magic juice which begins a series of loony events that will lead to crazed corpses biting tits, a half-torso rat-loving jailbird swinging around on a rope, a bald-headed, Catholic-guilt, steel-toothed heart attack victim trying to swallow a giant rat, rat energy transplanted into the warden which causes him to react like a rodent (!), an addict who injects the green fluid and literally bursts at the seams, West literally electrocuting a zombie in the chair (!), a strangled victim of the warden (Elsa Pataky, portraying a reporter looking for a story inside the "death house") brought back to life and then unfortunately given nanoplasm culled from the very man who killed her, among other crazy shenanigans in this special effects extravaganza. You literally see the warden's "lifeforce" coursing through Pataky as she tries to fight him away, unsuccessfully. Severed heads, penis and eyeballs are active participants, hanging prisoners kicking their feet as the sadistic warden wants to continue to punish them even after death (!), plenty of warden wielding his silver-tipped cane, lots of Pataky which is never a bad thing, and a riot turning convicts on guards. The religious nut (Nico Baixas) is a hoot, seemingly innocent yet encumbered with an insatiable appetite thanks to his resurrection; his reaching to the sky as the light emerges with SWAT blasting away sends him off with a bang. Combs is in fine form, still arrogant and brilliant as West, too absorbed in seeing that his work escapes failure, with plenty of sacrificial lambs proving otherwise. At least this film allows him to continue his work, as previous films seemed to indicate his demise. Lots of busy noise and in pure Brian Yuzna style, a real flair for gonzo gory carnage. Yuzna is an acquired taste, but he was always diving head first into the craziest of material, working in Spain at this point in his career. Andreu, as the main antagonist, is a real heel both alive and dead...in this series, although West is never technically a hero, he often is by default celebrated just because there is someone opposite him *even worse*.

It had been thirteen years since the last Re-Animator feature; "Bride of Re-Animator". So producer / director Brian Yuzna would return to the helm along with Jeffrey Combs (stolidly in touch) reprising his signature role as mad scientist Dr. Herbert West, who's risky ambitions leaves a lot of bloody corpses twitching over. The sequels were never a patch on the original, but "Bride" and "Beyond" are solid enough follow-ups. Again the low-budget "Beyond" virtually keeps the same ideas and structure as the previous entries, but this time gives it a change of scenery. It's confined as West is back to his old ways, but behind bars.After the Miskatonic University massacre Dr. Herbert West was sentenced to prison after having state's evidence turned against him by his former assistant. After serving thirteen years, he meets the new prison doctor Dr. Howard Phillip who wants him to be his assistant, but the real motivation for choosing West is for his work on re-animating corpses. Phillip's sister was killed by one of West's creations and he witnessed it. So the pair go about continuing these experiments, despite the sadistic prison warden and a snooping newspaper reporter who Dr. Phillip seems to fancy.The gore, nastiness and macabre dark humour is still pumping through the veins, as Yuzna injects it with the glowing green elixir for it to really lurch out. The plot doesn't offer much in the way of surprises, as usual a female comes between the men and their work in what only ends in tragedy. "Watch out for her. She's trouble." The script manages to expand on West's theories, which helps it move forward, but Yuzna never loses sight of its unpleasant and monstrous details. Screaming Mad George come up with the ghastly creations and delivers some creative F/X work. It really comes in to its own during the chaotically bloody prison riot stages, but even the opening of the film is a twisted delight. The performances are modest by Jason Berry and Elsa Pataky, but Simon Andreu is good fun as the Warden. While Combs just can't don anything wrong."Beyond Re-Animator" is exaggerated schlock for those desiring a cheap hit."I want to help people. Not create mindless freaks."

As a child, Howard Philips witnesses the death of his sister at the hands of a reanimated corpse, the grisly result of one of mad genius Herbert West's crazy experiments. Thirteen years later, Howard (Jason Barry), now a brilliant young doctor, takes up residency at the Arkham Penitentiary where West (Jeffrey Combs) is incarcerated, in the hope that he can convince the scientist to reveal the secret behind his reagent and use it to help mankind.West, who has been carrying out experiments inside his prison cell using makeshift equipment, is only too happy to help: with proper lab facilities at his disposal, he can continue work on his new discovery—nano-plasm, the energy present in all living creatures—which he believes will stabilise his otherwise violent test subjects. West's ideas are clearly a little flaky (in order for him to harvest the nano-plasm needed to restore a life, someone has to die), but then so is he, and once again, his experiments only lead to chaos and carnage ('You were wrong!' screams an angry Howard at West as he realises the true horror of their actions; 'It was a THEORY' replies the scientist dryly).Beyond Re-animator is the first of the series to be produced under Brian Yuzna's Spanish production label Fantastic Factory, and as such, it suffers from a slightly less polished look and feel to its predecessors (as well as a supporting cast who all bear slight traces of a Spanish accent). Thankfully, Yuzna's sense of humour is just as dark and demented as before and the result is another hugely enjoyable exercise in outrageous splatter, deviancy, and total lunacy.Admittedly, after the excellent opening scene, the film takes a while to get up to speed again, but once Yuzna and his talented team of effects experts hit their stride, there's simply no stopping the madness: there's a nasty warden who, after being killed and injected with rat nano-plasm, becomes a half rodent/half human zombie who wants to use West's glowing green formula to prolong the agony of execution for those on death row; a drug addict explodes after overdosing on reagent; a prisoner's upper torso wanders around on its hands during the films crazy closing riot scene; the prison's sexy nurse (Bárbara Elorrieta) has her dress torn off by a zombie that proceeds to savage her naked breast; Howard's hot reporter girlfriend Laura (the incredibly gorgeous Elsa Pataky) is transformed into a schizophrenic zombie dominatrix clad in a tight corset, black stockings, suspenders, and stiletto heels; and a rat makes off with the warden's severed penis.Oh, and be sure to continue watching during the end credits for what is possibly the film's funniest gag (depending on how warped your sense of humour is, of course).

I am a big fan of horror movies and actually made a mistake when I bought this movie second hand. I didn't check the title that well and was convinced I was buying the original. My disappointed was gone very soon. I admit that the acting is horrendous but strangely this just gives the movie more of it's charm. Elsa Pataky is stunning in her role and the gore in this movie is just so over the top it makes you smile while watching horrible things happen to people. All in all without spoiling anything I can encourage everyone to watch this movie. This could become a genuine cult classic. I agree that this term is used way to much, but if you liked Braindead by Peter Jackson you will adore this movie. What I kept wondering is how they got up with the scene when the credits are rolling...that was just amazingly funny stuff.