Herbert West

Herbert West is a fictional character created by H. P. Lovecraft for his short story "Herbert West—Reanimator", first published in 1922.[1] There have been several film adaptations of the story including Herbert West as played by Jeffrey Combs in the Re-Animator (film series) which include the 1985 Re-Animator film and its two sequels, Bride of Re-Animator and Beyond Re-Animator.

Herbert West
'Re-Animator' character
Cover art for ReAnimator #1 (April 2015) by Jae Lee.
First appearance"Herbert West—Reanimator"
Created byH. P. Lovecraft
Portrayed byJeffrey Combs
In-universe information
GenderMale
OccupationScientist
NationalityAmerican

Herbert West is the inventor of a special solution that when injected into a main artery of a recently deceased person causes the body's mechanical, living functions to return. However, most subjects that have undergone the "re-animation" process have turned violent and, after failed attempts to return to their own graves, have terrorized the communities into which they were reanimated. In Lovecraft's tale, Herbert West was ostracized by his fellow medical students because he believed he could overcome death and had only one friend: the unnamed narrator of the story.

Re-Animator films
Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West in Bride of Re-Animator.

The character of Herbert West returned to popular media in the Stuart Gordon film Re-Animator and its sequels, starring Jeffrey Combs as Dr. West. These films transplant the character into the modern day (1980s-2000s) rather than the Prohibition era and changes his hair from Lovecraft's specified blond to brown, but otherwise the character remains unchanged. The film is also set over a fairly short period of time where West and Cain are still medical students, whereas the short story played out over the span of decades from the years of medical students, practising doctors, war-time physicians and eventually retirement. In the first two films the equivalent of West's nameless companion is Dr. Daniel Cain, played by Bruce Abbott, who finds himself embroiled in West's experiments.

Other appearances

Comics
  • Adventure Publications, an imprint of Malibu Comics, published two series related to the films starting in 1991. First was a three-issue comic-book adaptation of the first film, scripted by Steven Philip Jones and drawn by Christopher Jones. It was followed by an original four-issue prequel titled Re-Animator: Dawn of the Re-Animator, written by Bill Spangler. In 2017 Arrow Video included reprints of these comics in their Blu-ray DVD collections of the two films.
  • Dynamite Entertainment first featured West in the 2005 four-issue series Army of Darkness vs. Re-Animator, where he faces off against Ash Williams, hero of the Evil Dead film series. There was also a Re-Animator #0 prequel. In 2013, West again joined Williams in the one-shot Army of Darkness/Re-Animator. West was then featured in his own 2014 four-issue series, simply called Reanimator, that picked up after the one-shot left off.
  • Herbert West is the doctor that Mayor Harvey Dent sees in the Batman Elseworlds comic book miniseries, The Doom That Came To Gotham.
  • Herbert West makes a guest appearance in the Devil's Due Publishing series Hack/Slash (#15-17) in a crossover called "Hack/Slash vs. Re-Animator" where the father of the main heroine, Cassie Hack, is an assistant to Herbert. During one of his experiments, he reanimates her mother, the Lunch Lady, who almost starts a killing spree. However, with Cassie's help, he destroys the Lunch Lady and eventually disappears from Cassie and Vlad's sight. It is hinted that the government is now interested in his work.
  • West is a main character in the Zenescope Entertainment comic Chronicles of Doctor Herbert West, essentially a modern retelling of the Lovecraftian novel in which the hidden narrator is now Megan, who is his lover and girlfriend while in his college years, and his obsession with death is now explained as the byproduct of a childhood trauma: while going to church with his devout family, he saw his mother and sister run over by a bus. He renounces the idea of an immortal soul reaching a heavenly afterlife, swearing that he will find a way to bring back his loved ones. It appears to currently be on hiatus.
  • Randy MilHolland's webcomic Something Positive contains a musical adaptation of Herbert West in the "Out of Tune" storyline.

Video games
  • The online flash game Deanimator is based on H. P. Lovecraft's original character.
  • The Splatterhouse video game series features a mad scientist called "Dr. Henry West", owner of "West Mansion", the setting for the series. This Dr. West was also conducting experiments to resurrect the dead.
  • West is a main character in the Japanese video game Operation Darkness, a WWII-era tactical-RPG/third-person shooter about an Allied special forces unit that possess supernatural abilities. West is the team medic. (In the English version of the game, West is renamed "Herbert East.")
  • In the video game Obscure 2, the player picks up a keycard in the hospital belonging to a man named Herbert West.
  • In the endless runner game Zombie Tsunami, the player at one point unlocks a potion called "Herbert West's Finest Reanimation Serum".
  • In the video game Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter, a pamphlet promoting Bedlam Asylum states to "Contact Dr. Herbert West for questions"

Novels
  • Herbert West and elements form The Plague-Daemon feature prominently in Lovecraftian: The Shipwright Circle by Steven Philip Jones. The Lovecraftian series reimagines the weird tales of H. P. Lovecraft into one single universe modern epic.
  • The character of Herbert West has had brief cameo appearances in Kim Newman's Anno Dracula series novels The Bloody Red Baron and Dracula Cha Cha Cha, serving as a colleague of Dr. Moreau, Jakob Ten Brincken, and Doctor Septimus Pretorius.
  • Herbert West is the main character in novels by Audrey Driscoll entitled The Friendship of Mortals (2010), Islands of the Gulf (2012) and Hunting the Phoenix (2012).
  • West is an important, but peripheral character in Pete Rawlik's novel Reanimators (2013), in which his previously unnamed colleague is identified as Daniel Cain, using the name assigned him in the Stuart Gordon movie. The novel tells the story of a previously unknown rival of West's, as well as the secret history of Lovecraft's Arkham country.

Film
  • West is also a character in the Swedish Lovecraftian horror film Kammaren. The scriptwriters did a Swedish take on the name and it became Herbert Vest. He was played by the Swedish actor Kaj Stenberg.
  • The character of Herbert West appears in an after credits sequence in the 2020 film Castle Freak.

Anime
  • The Lovecraft-based anime series Demonbane reimagines Herbert West as a guitar-playing lunatic mad scientist.

Music
  • "Herbert West" is the title of a 2007 song by UK band Heartwear Process.
  • "Herbert West" is also the title of a 2008 song by US band Pipe Supply, named by Jiggly J. Slickwood as a tribute to the Re-Animator movies.
  • "Herbert West Starter Kit" is the title of a 2016 song by US rapper Extra Kool.
  • "Herbert West" was also the name of a rock band based in Barrow-in-Furness in the 1980s.

Other

References
  1. Joshi, S.T.; Schultz, David E. (2004). An H.P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia. Hippocampus Press. p. 294. ISBN 978-0974878911.
  • Herbert West : Reanimator by H. P. Lovecraft
  • Lovecraft, Howard P. (1986) [1922]. "Herbert West—Reanimator". In S. T. Joshi (ed.). Dagon and Other Macabre Tales (9th corrected printing ed.). Sauk City, WI: Arkham House. ISBN 978-0-87054-039-4. Definitive version.
  • Lovecraft, Howard P. (1999) [1922]. "Herbert West—Reanimator". In S. T. Joshi; Peter Cannon (eds.). More Annotated Lovecraft (1st ed.). New York City, NY: Dell. ISBN 978-0-440-50875-5. With explanatory footnotes.
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