Upcoming Lovecraft Remake Is More Exciting After Guillermo del Toro’s 2025 Netflix Hit

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Jacob Elordi’s The Creature looking at a human skull in 2025’s Frankenstein

Published Apr 1, 2026, 9:02 AM EDT

Dhruv is a Lead Writer in Screen Rant's New TV division. He has been consistently contributing to the website for over two years and has written thousands of articles covering streaming trends, movie/TV analysis, and pop culture breakdowns.
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A classic Lovecraftian movie is getting a new remake, and it is hard not to see how it is the perfect time for its release after Guillermo del Toro's big 2025 hit on Netflix.

Lovecraftian horror is one sub-genre that is often approached with a lot of caution. The complex prose and the ambiguous themes of H.P. Lovecraft's brand of horror are not easy to translate to the screen. Yet, every once in a while, a movie or a show will perfectly capture the existential dread that looms beneath every cosmic horror tale.

Loosely inspired by a H. P. Lovecraft serial novelette, a 1985 horror comedy flick remains one of the better takes on the author's stories. Interestingly, after all these years, the movie is getting a whole new remake, which is even more exciting after Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein.

1985’s Lovecraftian Movie Re-Animator Is Getting A Remake

Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West in Beyond Re-Animator holding a syringe

As reports confirm, H. P. Lovecraft's 1922 novelette, Herbert West: Reanimator, is being adapted for the big screen. The literary work previously served as the inspiration behind Stuart Gordon's Re-Animator. The movie not only earned positive reviews from viewers and critics but also ended up spawning two follow-ups: Bride of Re-Animator (1990) and Beyond Re-Animator (2003).

Even after all these years, Re-Animator is considered a cult horror classic and often touted as one of the better takes on H.P. Lovecraft's stories.

The new remake of H.P. Loveraft's Herbert West: Reanimator is being adapted into a modernized movie by Adam Simon and Tim Metcalfe. The project is being funded by Woodlake Entertainment, with Jeffrey Lewis and Keith Previte as its producers.

Considering the long history of modern remakes in the history of cinema, it is hard not to raise a skeptical eye towards the new Re-Animator. Given how Lovecraftian movies have also always been hit or miss, it is hard not to question whether the new movie will be able to match the 1985 adaptation's legacy.

However, since the 1985 movie has also set a solid precedent for the remake and proven the adaptability of Herbert West: Reanimator, the new movie could actually work.

Interestingly, the upcoming movie also benefits from continuing a growing horror movie trend that was followed by Guillermo del Toro's recent Netflix hit.

Re-Animator’s Remake Is Exciting After The Success Of Guillermo del Toro‘s Frankenstein

Re-Animator's story might sound a little too familiar. It focuses on medical student Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) who accidentally ends up discovering a reagent that revives the dead. It seems very similar to Frankenstein, which is not coincidental. When H.P. Lovecraft first wrote Herbert West: Reanimator, he intended it to be a parody of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

The author deliberately adopted an over-the-top and gimmicky style of writing in the story to portray it as a funny take on the iconic Mary Shelley story. Like Frankenstein and the H.P. Lovecraft story, even the 1985 movie focuses on themes surrounding scientific rationalism vs. romanticism. At the same time, it does not shy away from leaning into the comical elements of the Lovecraftian story.

The upcoming remake will seemingly have to tread the same path to be able to succeed. It will also have to riff on the success of Guillermo del Toro‘s Frankenstein and leverage the fact that the Mark Shelley story has been getting renewed cultural attention in recent years.

In 2025 itself, we saw two big-budget Frankenstein movie projects: the Guillermo del Toro film and Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Bride! If the Re-Animator inclines towards its source material's inspiration, it could further continue this trend and bring a unique take on Mark Shelley's classic horror story.

Hopefully, like Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein on Netflix, the new remake of the H.P. Lovecraft story will also not disappoint.