Beyond Re-Animator (2003) KILL COUNT

Beyond Re-Animator (2003) KILL COUNT is the one hundred and seventy-second video of James A. Janisse's series, The Kill Count

## Overview

For the past 13 years, Dr. Herbert West has been serving a prison sentence due to a murder at the hands of one of his zombies. With what scant supplies he has on hand in the prison medical center, Dr. West has been capable of performing only extremely basic experiments on rats. However, his lack of supplies does not prevent him from uncovering a key element in his re-animation process. Dr. West has discovered "NPE" (Nano-Plasmic Energy), an energy that can be extracted from the brain of a living organism through an electrocution-like process, to be stored in a capsule resembling a small light bulb. The capsule can then be connected to a corpse and used in conjunction with West's previously developed reagent to restore the former dead to a lifelike state. The NPE prevents the degeneration seen in previous instances, where the reanimated are nothing more than mindless zombies. Used together with the re-agent, reanimated corpses regain their skills, memories, and motor functions and nearly fully resemble normal humans.

When a young doctor named Howard Phillips comes to work at the prison, West is assigned to assist the new doctor. Due to Phillips' interest with Dr. West's research, West is able to attain the supplies and tools needed to bring his experiments to the next level. It is revealed that Phillips is the younger brother of the teenage girl who was killed by West's zombie (he's shown watching West being taken away by the cops) and came to the prison for the explicit purpose of working with him. Despite his interest, Phillips still maintains an ethical reluctance to allow West's research to full completion. In the meantime, journalist Laura Olney, covering a story for her newspaper at the prison, meets and begins an affair with Dr. Phillips, and they fall in love. This new romance only temporarily postpones West's experiment, however. After the warden of the prison, also infatuated with Laura, attempts to seduce Laura himself, she resists and he angrily kills her.

Crushed by Laura's death, Dr. Phillips succumbs to Dr. West's wishes and his experiments are allowed to literally take on new life. West & Phillips revive Laura with the NPE, although it is quickly seen that the dangerous side effects of West's past work are still present with the NPE. Eventually the warden of the prison uncovers West's experiments and moves to put an end to them, but he is killed by West, and subsequently re-animated. West uses the NPE from a prisoner's pet rat, causing some unexpected side effects in the warden's behavior. It quickly manifests itself as the prison descends into utter chaos as a riot breaks out, with vials of the reagent circulating through the population. Soon, it is unclear who is dead, who is alive, and who has been exposed to the agent.

When the chaos finally settles from the bloody prison riot, West escapes captivity before the guards appear by stealing Phillips' I.D. (when he comes across Phillips weeping over Laura's decapitated body). As police and authorities take control of the prison, Herbert West is shown putting on his glasses outside the prison, and disappears into the night to continue his research.

## Deaths

### Counted Deaths

1. Emily - Strangled/ Head banged against wall. - 5 mins in
2. Re-Animated Zombie - Shot at least 5x by cop. - 5 mins in
3. Moses - Heart attack, I guess. - 19 mins in
4. Laura - Beaten to death offscreen by Warden Brando. - 50 mins in
5. Warden Brando - Electrocuted/ NPE harvested. - 58 mins in
6. Prison Guard #1 - Seen dead in control station area. - 1 hr 3 mins in
7. Prison Guard #2 - Seen dead in control station area. - 1 hr 3 mins in
8. Prison Guard #3 - Seen dead. - 1 hr 4 mins in
9. Prison Guard #4 - Seen being beaten to death. - 1 hr 4 mins in
10. Prison Guard #5 - Seen dead outside prison pharmacy. - 1 hr 8 mins in
11. Sgt. Moncho - Beaten to death by Warden Brando. - 1 hr 10 mins in
12. Cabrera - Cut in half. - 1 hr 11 mins in
13. Inmate #1 - Killed by Laura w/ knife. - 1 hr 11 mins in
14. Inmate #2 - Killed by Laura w/ knife. - 1 hr 11 mins in
15. SWAT Team Member - Throat bitten out by Re-Animated Moses. - 1 hr 17 mins in
16. Re-Animated Moses - Showered w/ bullets by SWAT team. - 1 hr 17 mins in
17. Hanging Prisoner #1 - Hanged by Re-Animated Warden and Moncho. - 1 hr 19 mins in
18. Hanging Prisoner #2 - Hanged by Re-Animated Warden and Moncho. - 1 hr 19 mins in
19. Hanging Prisoner #3 - Hanged by Re-Animated Warden and Moncho. - 1 hr 19 mins in
20. Speedball - Blown up by self-injection with Re-Agent. - 1 hr 23 mins in
21. Re-Animated Cabrera - Beaten to death w/ cane by West. - 1 hr 27 mins in
22. Re-Animated Warden Brando - Electrocuted in electric chair by West. - 1 hr 29 mins in
23. Re-Animated Laura - Throat slit/ Decapitated w/ knife by Howard. - 1 hr 29 mins in

### Non-Counted Deaths

* Ratti - Experimented on by West.
* Winni - Possibly beaten to death by Warden.

## Trivia

* This is technically the second European film the be covered on the Kill Count. (With the first being "Suspiria").
* This is the only Re-Animator Kill Count not to be age-restricted.