We can trace the horror arc of mucking about with human life back to Mary Shelley. It’s basically a tale as old as time, and The Rejuvenator is certainly not alone as an IP tackling the subject. In fact, one of the more popular offerings shares a suffix and subject matter – site favorite, Re-Animator – which predates this by a couple of years.
These couldn’t be more similar: in the latter, Dr. Herbert West develops a serum to bring the dead back to life, first with a cat and then unwitting two-legged subjects. With The Rejuvenator, Dr Gregory Ashton sources neural tissue from cadavers and injects an experimental serum into patients despite frequent warnings from colleagues. He does so, in a sense, to bring the dying back to life – or, to reverse the aging process for a patron, an aging dowager/Old Hollywood-styled actress desperate for her old, or er, new face.
A low-budget regional horror (New York/New Jersey) The Rejuvenator (aka, The Rejuvenatrix) is spirited and talky, and has some pretty entertaining practical effects and some over-the-top performances.
There’s even a graverobber hiding out in a derelict industrial building, sporting a Dickensian accent.
You could take drinking game-swig every time someone says “doctor,” and end up in the hospital yourself.
Made for fans of white-coat horrors…you know, films with lab settings and scientists not heeding warnings about their controversial work.
*** (out of 5)
Check out the Really Awful Movies Podcast discussion of The Rejuvenator.
Really Awful Movies 