The Best Revenant Movies (2020): Movie Monsters

By Steve Hutchison

Steve Hutchison reviews 60 of his favorite revenant movies. Each article includes a synopsis, a review, and a rating. The movies are ranked. How many have you seen?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Hutchison
• Release date: Feb 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781778870835

Steve Hutchison

Artist, developer and entrepreneur in film, video games and communications Steve Hutchison co-founded Shade.ca Art and Code in 1999, then Terror.ca and its French equivalent Terreur.ca in 2000. With his background as an artist and integrator, Steve worked on such games as Capcom's Street Fighter, PopCap's Bejeweled, Tetris, Bandai/Namco's Pac-Man and Mattel's Skip-Bo & Phase 10 as a localization manager, 2-D artist and usability expert. Having acquired skills in gamification, he invented a unique horror movie review system that is filterable, searchable and sortable by moods, genres, subgenres and antagonists. Horror movie fans love it, and so do horror authors and filmmakers, as it is a great source of inspiration. In March 2013, Steve launched Tales of Terror, with the same goals in mind but with a much finer technology and a complex engine, something that wasn’t possible initially. He has since published countless horror-themed books.

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Tales of Terror’s

Movie Monsters 2020

The Best Revenant Movies

INTRODUCTION

Steve Hutchison reviews 60 of his favorite revenant movies. Each article includes a synopsis, a review, and a rating. The movies are ranked. How many have you seen?

#1

Pet Sematary

1989

A family moves into a town house located near a cemetery rumored to bring back the buried to life.

8/8

Pet Sematary is a sad and terrifying family story that excels at exploiting one of the deepest and most visceral fears humans have: losing someone they love. We learn about the cursed grounds that bring the dead to life through dialogue and flashbacks during deep discussions between neighbors. The casting is ideal for a sinister supernatural thriller of this intensity.

It feels like a TV movie, but the budget is significant. You get advanced prosthetics and the photography is peculiar. In this Stephen King adaptation, it isn’t the house that is haunted but a vaguely defined area whose reach goes far beyond the cemetery gates. The place is surreal and is the villain. It is as eerie as the score: a recurring sonata sang by a children’s choir.

While most horror movies make contortions in order to stand out and be called memorable, Pet Sematary gives us a simple plot that we can all relate to. It reminds us of familiar events, patterns and struggles of family life, love and friendship, and amplifies common situations of sadness with a strong supernatural element; setting the tone for some of the creepiest scenes in horror movie history!

#2

Death Becomes Her

1992

Two women fighting over the same man are ready to go far to stay young forever.

8/8

You’ve never seen Bruce Willis, Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn quite like this. These grade A actors are handed golden dialogue and are playing vibrant characters. This could have been a dark horror film, but it has a peculiar humor and the kind of wit that makes you laugh every thirty seconds. That’s when you’re not downright fascinated by the unfolding mystery.

Death Becomes Her is a strange story about beauty, youth, and what happens when you lose both. It is a twisted tale of jealousy and revenge. It has some of the best practical effects and make-up Hollywood had come up with up to this point in time. The film has several defining characteristics, but its slapstick humor is what it is most remembered by. Gore was never so hilarious!

Robert Zemeckis’ cinematography is divine. All shots are calculated when it comes to lighting, camera movements, set design, blocking and effects coordination. The writers give us a fascinating script that was probably hard to put together but feels natural once executed nevertheless. Ultimately, every aspect of this film hits its target. Death Becomes Her is close to perfection.

#3

Re-Animator

1985

Two medical students stir up trouble after experimenting with a scientific formula that brings back the dead.

7/8

Most cinematographic adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft’s stories are completely different in tone from one another, though they mostly feature complex antagonists and the scientists investigating them, as an unspoken rule. This couldn’t apply more to Re-Animator, even considering the dark, contemporary slapstick humor. Few aspects about this film are reproachable.

It wants to gross you out then make you laugh at yourself by the time you realize how ludicrous the script is, despite its pseudo-serious tone. It manages this irony using good but implausible prosthetic effects, more gore than you could ask for, constant banter and keen deliveries from nearly impossible characters that are brilliantly played and directed.

Sometimes titillating, often repulsing but always amusing, Re-Animator is an