Herbert West

Herbert West
'Re-Animator' character
Re-Animator film poster
First appearance	"Herbert West—Reanimator"
Created by	H. P. Lovecraft
Portrayed by	Jeffrey Combs
Information
Gender	Male
Occupation	Scientist
Nationality	American

Herbert West is a fictional character created by H. P. Lovecraft for his short story "Herbert West—Reanimator", first published in 1922. 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 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.

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. Dan Cain, played by Bruce Abbott, who finds himself embroiled in West's experiments.

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