io9: Jeffrey Combs

Zombie Rat vs. Zombie Penis -- Who Wins? [NSFW]

Annalee Newitz — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 17:15:38 PDT

Yesterday we talked about the battle of the genitals in science horror films, and today I've got the best example of a horror movie penis ever created. It's the zombie rat vs. zombie penis moment from Beyond Re-Animator, the third in a series about a mad doctor (played with vigor by Jeffrey Combs) with a glow-in-the-dark serum that turns dead people into mind-controlled zombies. This flick takes place in a Spanish prison, where our mad doctor has been zombiefying everybody, including the rat-like warden and a zillion prisoners hanged for rioting. In this scene, the zombied warden tries to molest a zombied lady, while a zombied rat watches hungrily.

Luckily, the rat gets his chow. Or will the chow fight back? After all, once you're a zombie, all your body parts take on a life of their own.

It won't surprise you to find out that this brilliant movie is the brainchild of my personal deity Brian Yuzna, with special effects provided by Screaming Mad George. They're the same team who provided you so much pleasure several weeks ago with this NSFW scene from Faust where a lady's body parts suddenly get a little . . . out of proportion. Basically, you always know you're watching a Yuzna flick because there will be lots of creative gore mixed with foot fetishism and weird sex.

I highly recommend Beyond Re-Animator — this scene hardly does justice to a movie where one of the bad guys spends most of the movie as a severed torso swinging from bar to bar through the prison. And of course, the zombie rat and zombie penis meet again several times . . .

Beyond Re-Animator

Which Overexposed Scifi Actor Should Take A Nice Break?

Charlie Jane Anders — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 12:00:23 PST

You keep seeing the same faces over and over again in science fiction. At first it's like, "Oh, there's my old friend Summer Glau. I'm so glad she's getting work." And then, it slowly turns into, "How many maniacs of science can Jeffrey Combs play before he actually falls asleep in mid-speech and lights his hair on fire with his bunsen burner?" Especially when people like Will Smith admit they're only doing scifi because it's commercial. Click through to vote for the most overexposed science fiction actor.

I resisted the temptation to include people like Katee Sackhoff, who's only done two shows: Battlestar Galactica and Bionic Woman. Or Scott Bakula. Or half the cast of Firefly, who've gone on to be on other things. I also decided to leave out Bruce Willis and Cilian Murphy, who have been in a lot of scifi but aren't really "scifi actors" in the way that Will Smith is. Who would you have included on this poll?

In any case, you needn't feel guilty about voting for a good actor in this poll. Everyone here is a good actor, but maybe one of these people should work in other genres for a while. (Which, to be fair, Smith did for a bit.)

Goodbye to 4400's Ripoff Mutants and Zany Scientology

Annalee Newitz — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 07:30:28 PST

Scott Peters, creator of the lovably bizarre mutant saga 4400, has just announced the show will be canceled after 4 seasons and a trippy cliffhanger. In this clip, you see the show at its best, making fun of its own gooftastic premise, which is that there are 4400 people in the world who time-traveled to the future, got mutant powers, and came back to save the planet.

The 4400's crack team of mutant-wranglers are watching a movie made by a 4400 named Curtis with the best mutant power ever: he uncovers conspiracies by writing B-movies. Here he pitches his latest, The Marked, which tells the (true) tale of how future dudes who don't like the 4400 have also traveled back in time to stop the 4400 from saving the world. Yes, everything had gotten really complicated and byzantine by the fourth season, but it had also gotten psychotically rad.

Jeffrey Combs, star of Re-Animator and TV ham extraordinaire, played a mad scientist who invented promicin, a glowing green drug that could make anybody into a superpowered 4400 mutant. (His mind-controlling girlfriend was played by Summer Glau, from Firefly and soon to be in the Sarah Connor Chronicles). Meanwhile, a very Scientology-esque religious leader from the 4400 had taken over Seattle and was making everyone take promicin to bring on the mutantastic future. Plus, there was a lot of weird mutant sex and angsting.

I've always guiltily enjoyed 4400, in part because it cheerfully stole from everything: X-Files, X-Men, TimeTrax, Heroes, and even Scientology. It was always fun and melodramatic, full of culty mutant enclaves, secretive pseudo-government agencies, mad scientists, superpowered babies who grow to adulthood overnight, and a lot of unnecessary hair gel. Plus, the fourth season cliffhanger — now the show's finale — was utterly insane. Everybody in the world was about to get their hands on promicin and go mutant. 4400, you were never afraid to go over the top. I'll miss you.

Scott Peters Announces the 4400 Canceled [4400 Guide]

Re-Animator Flick On Hold Because Zombies Are Way Too Political

Annalee Newitz — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 23:59:56 PDT

My heart is breaking because Jeffrey Combs just told SciFi Wire that we may be waiting a lot longer for the much-anticipated House of Re-Animator, the fourth in the Re-Animator series, and the second to be directed by its anarchist-comedian mastermind, Stuart Gordon. Apparently its political message, about a zombie Vice-President who runs amok, cuts too close to the bone. Studios are wussing out of doing some gory political satire. According to Combs:

The latest idea is too on the nose, because it's about a vice president who has a heart attack and dies, which is terrible, because he runs the country, and a kind of Karl Rove-ian character brings Herbert to the White House to revive him. All is well for a little while, and then, of course, havoc has its day. A lot of people they took the idea to didn't want to touch it. And, of course, the real power in it would be to get it out before they are out of power.

OK, why the fuck did Uwe goddamn Boll get to direct a gory political satire (the wretched Postal), but Stuart Gordon - who actually has a brain and some writing ability - doesn't? What the hell, people? I think the problem is that Hollywood doesn't want progressive politics in movies to offend the delicate white liberal sensibility. Politics should be sanctimonious, and no bodily fluids should be involved. Somebody like Michael Moore gets to make "funny" political movies because he's actually an irritating dogmatist who is boring to watch, but Gordon - who threatens to entertain us - is being told zombies are just too political for the B-movie crowd.

Must See: Enterprise

charliejane — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 22:26:50 PDT

Must-see TV shows are futuristic classics that shouldn't be missed. Of course, not every must-see is perfect. That's why we've rated them 1-5 on the patented "crunchy goodness" scale.

Title: Enterprise (later Star Trek: Enterprise)
Date: 2001-2005

Vitals: The early seat-of-your-jumpsuit days of Starfleet, complete with Klingon and Romulan first contacts. Oh, and mysterious future people want to change history for some mysterious reason.

Famous names: Scott Bakula, Jolene Blalock, Connor Trineer, John Billingsley, Dominic Keating, Linda Park, Jeffrey Combs, Brannon Braga, Rick Berman

Crunchy goodness: 2

Stunt casting: Quantum Leap's Bakula as the intrepid captain, who never quite loses his dazed look, as if wondering where he's ended up this time.

Life lesson: Humans may be new to interstellar travel, but our ballsy shoot-first-ask-questions-never attitude is worth way more than the Vulcans' hundreds of years of experience.

Deadliest spoiler: Trineer sacrifices his life so Captain Archer can survive to give a speech to the new Galactic Elk's Club.

StarTrek.nl - News, Episode Guides & More.

Must See: Re-Animator

Annalee Newitz — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 21:58:21 PDT

Must-see movies are futuristic classics that shouldn't be missed. Of course, not every must-see is perfect. That's why we've rated them 1-5 on the patented "crunchy goodness" scale.

Title: Re-Animator
Date: 1985

Vitals: True goodness equals mad science plus slapsticky grossouts plus Jeffrey Combs in an early, over-the-top performance as crazy Dr. Herbert West, who invents a serum that brings dead bodies back to life. When he's kicked out of med school by a jealous professor, West continues his reanimation in secret - while his old professor builds an army of mind-controlled, undead freaks. Based extremely loosely on an H.P. Lovecraft short story.

Famous names: Stuart Gordon, Jeffrey Combs

Crunchy goodness: 5

Sight you'll never unsee: After West decapitates and reanimates his rival Dr. Hill, the headless undead doctor carries his head around in a bowling bag and kidnaps a young woman he's taken a fancy to. Hill strips her, straps her to a medical table, and then - well, let's just say he gives new meaning to the phrase "giving head."

Sequels: Followed by Bride of Re-Animator and Beyond Re-Animator, both directed by Gordon pal Brian Yuzna, who memorably includes a zombie rat vs. zombie penis sequence in Beyond Re-Animator. Gordon returns to the franchise in 2008 with House of Re-Animator, starring William H. Macy as the president, who gets involved in re-animation shenanigans.

Most memorable product tie-in: In The 4400, Jeffrey Combs (our beloved Herbert West) plays a mad doctor who invents a glowing green serum that he injects into people with a giant syringe to give them mutant powers. The glowing green syringe is a near-replica of the one he uses in the Re-Animator movies.

Reanimator - Fansite with many extras including the original short story.