The Rejuvenator

An aging actress employs a scientist to make her younger and it comes with drastic side effects. Whenever the potion wears off, she turns into a monster and needs human blood to rejuvenate. It's a fun concept that well executed with excellent special effects.

A rich actress who has gotten too old for leading roles employs a scientist who is working on a formula for eternal youth. The formula involves withdrawing certain fluids from the human brain. She takes the serum, but its unforseen side effects turn her into a murderous monster. Brian Thomas Jone's "The rejuvenator" is a surprisingly gory and ambitious horror outing, with a ambitious plot and some excellent make-up effects. Granted, it lacked down-to-Earth characters, but if you liked films like "Society" and "Re-animator", the The Rejuvenator may be up your alley. The final transformation sequence is astounding!

"The Rejuvenator" is a pleasantly old-fashioned horror film, while still integrating today's requisite dose of elaborate makeup effects and gore. It is variously known as "Rejuvenatrix" (title displayed on print) and for foreign markets, "Juvenatrix".

Premise is the old reliable use of a woman seeking to regain her youth: former movie star Ruth Warren (Jessica Dublin), who funds the research of Dr. Gregory Ashton (John MacKay). He discovers the part of the brain controlling aging, and via lab experiments with rats, comes up with a serum to reverse the aging process.

Warren eagerly volunteers to act as a human guinea pig and is turned into her younger self (actress Vivian Lanko taking over the role in second reel), dubbing herself Elizabeth Warren, her own fictitious niece. Problem is that she turns into a hideous monster, requiring increasing dosages of the serum to be brought back to normal youth.

Ashton breaks the law to acquire numerous cadavers to prepare the serum, derived from human brains. In her monstrous state, Warren takes to killing innocents in order to survive, ultimately discovering how to get the same rejuvenation effect directly from a victim's brain (for lunch) without resorting to the doc's serum. He eventually develops a synthetic serum but by then it is too late.

Low-budgeter works because it is played absolutely straight, with campy elements, such as the obvious references to "Sunset Blvd." (Warren even has a Stroheim-like butler from the old days), allowed to blossom unforced. Adroit casting has Jessica Dublin and Vivian Lanko physically matched in the central role, each playing it in an appropriately florid and meanie manner. John MacKay and the Sandy Dennis-like Katell Pleven as his assistant are utterly earnest and believable as the scientists, while James Hogue plays Warren's butler/former lover with panache.

Highlight of the production is Edward French's elaborate makeup effects, moving from the routine expanding bladders under the skin to an original design of Medusa-like proportions as her head expands to monster scale. Tightly directed by Brian Thomas Jones, pic is designed to appeal to B-movie connoisseurs who can tolerate the explicit violence of contemporary horror efforts.

So many 80's horror films that were made mostly for the video market have been unfairly thrown aside in the 30+ years since they were released and many of them have a lot of creativity that deserves to be seen by a new audience. The Rejuvenator is one of those lost films that still has the capacity to entertain.

A doctor has been working on an anti-aging serum forever, but he hasn't been working fast enough to please one of his biggest financial benefactors - an aging actress whose career could use a refreshing. Even though he's nervous about it, he agrees to shoot her up with the serum, telling her all the risks and that she'll need multiple doses of the serum or else the entire thing will reverse. The only problem is that he needs human brain tissue to make more serum and he's running out of cadavers.

The special makeup effects are top notch, the performances are spirited with just enough camp appeal given the subject matter, and the script is smarter and better written that other films of this type and budget. This is a film that could benefit from a new Blu-Ray release.

A washed up actress resorts to eating the brains of a few unfortunate people who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. She does this to stop from mutating into a gruesome creature. She became a creature in the first place because of an experiment to regain her youth gone wrong. Apparently brains contain something that can transform her back to normal. Seems like a b-movie with a convenient set-up to show off some splatter but the story is actually full of rich character development and a strong tragic story. It plays out like a compelling "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" type drama that lectures on the ethics of science and how money can't buy back time. There's a pretty good amount of gore and blood with the brain eating violence and also with the slimy and gooey ending that looks like something out of the movie "Society" which had surreal special effects.