The Bottle Neck Gallery, a contemporary art space in Williamsburg, New York, asked me to produce a print for their art show “Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em: The Zombie Show”. The show features work influenced by iconic depictions of zombies in popular culture. I decided to make mine on cult zombie classic movie “Re-Animator”, directed in 1985 by Stuart Gordon, based on an original story by cult horror/fantasy/science fiction author H.P. Lovecraft.

In beginning my piece, my research revealed that many posters of “Re-Animator” already existed, the majority featuring depictions very much like, or a variation on the 1985 movie key art.

This usually centered on the main protagonist (of sorts) in the movie & story, “Dr. Herbert West”. Jeffrey Combs‘ performance in the 1985 film created an iconic hero/villain of cult cinema, and his glasses, white coat, and syringe filled with luminous serum has inspired hundred of artists for decades, paying tribute to this gem of a b-movie.

However, I did not want to merely produce another poster variation on a common theme, nor did I believe I could top the original poster – which is fantastic – in the same context, so a new approach was needed.

I eventually read H.P. Lovecraft’s original story “Herbert West – Reanimator”, first published in 1922. Here, the main story arc and characters are the same as the 1985 adaptation, where we find Dr. West experimenting with his ‘re-agent’, and bringing the dead back to life as mindless zombies. The original story is more expansive and darker in tone, with a gothic setting and none of the humour now associated with the film.

I also noticed the mention of “Miskatonic University” in the original story. Much of Lovecraft’s work has featured this fictional University, with it appearing in the 1985 in a modern context as “Miskatonic Medical School”. As this school is famous in it’s own right, with many websites devoted to it’s place in the overall mythos, but very few graphical depictions of it, based on this I decided it would be a good subject.

I took the overall graphic tone from the original story – here Miskatonic is presented as an old, prestigious school, rather than a modern medical school – and combined it with a key moment in the 1985 movie, which never happens on camera.

In the film after a confrontation between Dr. Herbert West and one of his more odious counterpoints, Dr. Carl Hill, results in the beheading of the latter. Dr. Hill is re-animated by West’s serum, and renders West unconscious. He then returns to Miskatonic with the intention of raising more zombies from the University morgue. It is the imagining of this scene that created the start point for my print. I based the University on a real school, used as Miskatonic in a previous portrayal, and used greens to create a visual link between my illustration and the film, with the luminous green as an accent colour.

The print is a four colour, 18″ x 24″ hand-pulled screen-print, by Suki at The Print Block in Whitstable, Kent.