Top 10 Horror Resurrections!

Last Updated on August 3, 2021

Ah, good old Easter Sunday is here in just a couple of days. You know what that means right folks, it’s all about the Big Return. Reincarnation. Resurrection!

Of course, as we all know, resurrection is and has always been a key plot-point of the horror genre. Immediate thoughts of flesh-rotting zombies animating from the cold filthy grave leap to mind, but check it Jack, not all horror film resurrections are of the subterranean, brain-eating zombie variety. Oh hell no. We’ve seen a wide array of horrific rebirths on film, be they’re in lasting sequels or obscure one-offs. Hell, there’s even variety within the graveyard reanimation subset, with different modes of killing outside of cannibalism taking hold. And that’s what we’re interested in this holiday. I mean, I guess technically any reanimated dead thing can be considered a zombie, but let’s not get into semantics. Instead, roll up your sleeves, pull out the shovel and dig headlong into our Top 10 Horror Resurrections!

#1. FRANKENSTEIN (1931)

84 years atop the mountain and still counting! Okay, so the good Doc FRANKENSTEIN’s wicked work isn’t that of bringing a single body brought back to the living, but instead doing so from a zombified patchwork of body-parts collected from a slew of human corpses. Mad! The effect is just the same however, and in fact far more impressive our my opinion, not least for which being the absolute forerunner of this type of “back-to-life” horror subset. And that it creates such sympathy for the monster is what gives it its supreme power over all others. It’s the Moby Dick of resurrection joints, which ironically makes sense from a director whose surname is Whale!

#2. KATIA VADJA – BLACK SUNDAY (1960)

In Bava we trust! The undisputed Godfather of Italian horror cinema began a trailblazing career in pictures with his 1960 masterpiece BLACK SUNDAY, which, granted, features a conventional rise-from-the-grave resurrection. However, this ain’t the somnambulant slowpoke with a penchant for human brains we’re so damn accustomed to. Oh no. In BLACK SUNDAY it’s all about Barbara Steel dastardly attempt to regain, or usurp, the witchy powers of her lookalike successor. In other words, it’s a zombie-witch-possession picture, which, like Bava on the whole, deserves its own category.

#3. RE-ANIMATOR (1985)

Actions speak louder than words, so allow me to sit the f*ck back and let you revel in the utter ribald hilarity of a severed head going down on a chick in RE-ANIMATOR. Yup, just drink that sucker in! Stuart Gordon’s comedic horror classic, in turn loosely inspired by the mad-doctor Frankenstein mythos, still holds serve as one of the all time best horror joints in which its ravenous foe disgustingly returns from an eternal sleep-state in order to sate an unquenchable bloodlust. And we love it! Turning 30 this October, altogether now, Happy Rebirth Day to…

#4. T-800 TERMINATOR – T-2: JUDGMENT DAY (1991)

The mortified look on Sarah Conner’s face says it all doesn’t it. How the hell did that indefatigable monster-machine I laid motherf*cking waste to 7 years ago come back and find me? Is it the goddamn thorazine I’m on? What gives!! But as she soon learns, Arnie is no joke, and has actually been reprogrammed in the future by her son John, and sent back in time to protect them both. It’s a pretty rad paradigm shift actually. Normally a resurrected being in a genre piece goes from good to bad, but here the opposite is true. The T-800 swaps malevolence for benevolence in its return.

#5. ERIC DRAVEN – THE CROW (1994)

Is it just me, or does anyone else think Heath Ledger was inspired by Brandon Lee’s turn in THE CROW for his own as The Joker? A little too inspired perhaps? Oh I kid. What, too soon? Still? Really? Fine. Be that as it may, there’s no denying how killer-cool Eric Draven is in his Gothic rise from six feet under. After being viciously murdered, an ominous magpie brings Draven back to life with an agenda of vengeance upon the crooked sword-toting crime boss and the sordid under-lords that killed him. And damn does he execute it with high motherf*cking dudgeon!

#6. RIPLEY – ALIEN RESURRECTION (1997)

Not quite as ludicrous as old Voorhees being resurrected via lightning bolt in JASON LIVES, but pretty damn absurd nonetheless. Androgynous ass-kicking goddess Ellen Ripley, who was sadly forced to take her own life for the greater good of humanity in ALIEN 3, is heinously brought back to life via genetic cloning in ALIEN: RESURRECTION. Problem? Poor Ellen gets the Seth Brundle treatment, where partial Alien Queen DNA is spliced with Ripley’s own, which, as you know, synthesizes an odious half-human-half-alien monster.

#7. GAGE – PET SEMATARY (1989)

Technically speaking, I suppose Gage in PET SEMATARY is a zombie. After-all, he is buried underground and brought back to life. But who cares. First off, infant-zombies are a f*cking terror, let’s be real. Secondly, he isn’t a putrefying corpse out to merely masticate living tissue (as the cat Church more resembles), Gage instead revives as a sick little Chucky-like slasher who wields the scalpel with ill intent. Big difference. So, it’s with he and his rotten pet cat that we find a way to salute the master, Mr. Stephen King, in this here resurrection bash.

#8. SAMMI CURR – TRICK OR TREAT (1986)

Remember Corey Haim cornily spouting the line “Death By Stereo” in THE LOST BOYS? Yeah well how about Reincarnation by Radio Wave! Something similar certainly goes down in the classic 1986 heavy metal horror show TRICK OR TREAT, starring Ozzy Osbourne and Gene Simmons. Rather original if nothing else, when our ill-fated rocker Sammi gets burned to death, his mode of return involves the possession of radio waves and audio records in order to communicate to the living. In specific, a bullied young super-fan who gets a hold of a prized demo recording of Sammi’s. Soon Sammi is in cahoots with the kid and they go on a revenge fuelled rampage!

#9. AZAZEL – FALLEN (1998)

We almost went with Wes Craven’s 1989 flick SCHOCKER for using a similar conceit, but because it was handled with much more creative intrigue in the 1998 film FALLEN, it instead earns a coveted invite to the party. Remember, Elias Koteas plays an imprisoned serial killer who gets fried to death in the electric chair to start the picture. But his malevolent spirit, said to be that of the fallen angel Azazel, emanates back to life from the electricity and begins transferring from human host to human host upon the slightest physical touch. A resurrected fallen angel with evil intent!

#10. T-REX – JURASSIC PARK (1993)

Bringing a dead body back to life is one thing, but genetically reengineering a race of extinct prehistoric predators for financial gain is quite another. F*ck all that! Yet such is the high-concept conceit of Spielberg’s 1993 hit JURASSIC PARK, based on the Michael Crichton novel of the same name, in which the late great Richard Attenborough extracts dinosaur DNA from a petrified mosquito and uses it for cloning. As you know, shite goes haywire from there. And as you must also know, after a couple of underwhelming sequels, JURASSIC WORLD is finally poised to revive the franchise this coming June.