The Rejuvenator (Review)

The Rejuvenator (1988) 
Director: Brian Thomas Jones

The Rejuvenator (or Rejuvenatrix in some markets) is so very, very, very dumb. The characters are dumb. The writing is dumb. The effects are dumb. Triple stupidity. This is a disappointing fact considering that I remember the VHS cover from my youth and recall being intrigued by the image of the woman on the left and the waxen, melting mutant on the right. Now that I've seen it, I want the time back. The few decent monster effects this film can be proud of are completely torpedoed by some of the most annoying characters and ham-fisted acting I've ever seen. In fact, the acting is so bad I have awarded The Rejuvenator my coveted HAM-FIST AWARD.


SYNOPSIS
We all get old and we all lose our beauty, but aging actress  Ruth Warren (Jessica Dublin) isn't going to take nature lying down. She hires research scientist Dr. Gregory Ashton (John MacKay) to develop a youth serum to make her young again -- and it works! Rejuvenated (and now played by Vivian Lanko), Warren and Ashton enter into an awkward romance. Everything seems great, but there's one tiny catch. If Warren is not administered increasingly higher and higher doses of the serum, she mutates into a hose-headed, rubber-fingered monster driven to consume human brains. Oh yeah, Warren neglected to find out how Dr. Ashton made his serum -- illegally and from the brains of dead or murdered junkies, of course! And Ashton neglected to tell Warren that the first and only test subject, a lab rat, turned into a horrible monster before melting into a disgusting puddle. Trivial details! Kids, that's what you get when your drugs aren't FDA approved.

After Warren goes on a killing spree, Ashton attempts to create a synthetic serum to feed her addiction. At the same time, Ashton's melodramatic rival, Dr. Germaine, tries to kill his research project. Academic politics meets goofy monsters in this stale attempt at gross-out horror.
Rating: 1 / 5 Rubber Monster Hands








IS IT SILLY?

Everything about this movie is ridiculous. While the gruesome transformation scenes could have been shocking, the acting is so ham-fisted that almost every scene evokes bored laughter. Check out the pure vomit of exposition in the first 10 minutes of the film. Be prepared for a boring 10 minutes.

Come on! People don't talk that boringly even in real life.

And is it just me or does Dr. Gregory look like the love child of Lorne Michaels (SNL) and Bradley Whitford (The West Wing)?

Ham-fisted acting and the questionable paternity of Dr. Gregory aside, the silliest part of this film is the "monster." While we do get some neat transformation sequences, the end result is a real mess of a creature design. Primarily, when all is said an done and the latex bladders have stopped pumping and the prosthetic skin has stopped ripping, Warren turns into a purple and brown freak with a head full of inexplicable tubes.

I guess people have done equally crazy things to look beautiful in real life.

Watching the actress run uncomfortably around the frame with a cumbersome and probably very heavy head appliance really sucks the energy out of any attempts at atmosphere or dread -- not that there's much of an attempt. Director Brian Thomas Jones seems quite content to stick the camera on a tripod and just film the characters talking or walking around the set. The best attempts to create atmosphere that I can think of is when the lights are turned down so you can't see what's happening on screen. Yawn.

I have to admit that the transformation sequences are interesting although hardly ground-breaking, but this movie has nothing else going for it. It's subtextual themes regarding beauty, addiction, and medical ethics are pretty shallow and, frankly, as tired and flat as the acting.

Maybe the film could get a botox injection in the form of a modern remake?

*80's ALERT*

The Rejuvenator features a cameo by real-life female rock/metal band Poison Dollys. In what is one of the more entertaining scenes of the film because of the music, Poison Dollys plays at a club where Warren goes to look for a bit of fun. Keep that hair big, ladies!