Gore Girls: Gore and Bodily Agency in Brian Yuzna’s Bride of Reanimator and Return of the Living Dead III.

Bride of Reanimator (Brian Yuzna, 1990) and Return of the Living Dead III (Brian Yuzna, 1993) are rich case studies through which we can examine gore, the female body, and agency within the specific context of early 1990s North American splatter films.
Bride of Reanimator and Return of the Living Dead III stand as the most gore-filled entries in their respective series, and as such, this chapter will examine how these films and the gore contained within them can be situated in their 1990s genre context where horror, which had been repeatedly positioned as misogynistic during the previous decade, was increasingly pulling away from what was seen as the gratuitous “splatter” of the 1980s. This chapter will begin by highlighting the impact of this context on the depiction and narrative function of gore within the films.
Following this, after a brief discussion of women in the Return of the Living Dead (1984- 2005) and Reanimator (1985-2003) series and within the wider oeuvre of Brian Yuzna’s films, this chapter will then draw connections between Bride of Reanimator’s eponymous undead monster (Bride) and Return of the Living Dead III’s central zombie, Julie. Particular focus will be placed on how both character’s bodies are rendered simultaneously as erotic and repellent, with Bride’s gossamer-like gown and Julie’s ripped clothing inviting us to gaze on their physical attributes, but also to dwell on the presence of viscera, open wounds, and graphic injuries.
Overarchingly, this chapter will argue that Bride and Julie stand as significant figures in the context of early 1990s gore films due to how they regain their bodily agency in graphic and grisly ways: Bride triggers her blood drenched self-destruction by ripping out her own heart, while Julie’s increasingly extreme self-mutilation results in her weaponising her body against those who would objectify her.