Rejuvenatrix

Rejuvenatrix (1988)

The Fountain Of Youth For The Living Dead.

A rich actress who has gotten too old for leading roles employs a scientist who is working on a formula for eternal youth. The formula involves withdrawing certain fluids from the human brain. She takes the serum, but its unforeseen side effects turn her into a murderous monster.

Date of release
1988-07-22
TMDB
4.6 / 10 (18)
Runtime
1h 30m
Genres
Horror, Science Fiction
Director
Brian Thomas Jones

Casting

Interesting facts

Rejuvenatrix is a 1988 American horror film starring Vivian Lanko and John MacKay, and directed by Brian Thomas Jones. The film was partly inspired by the 1959 science fiction film The Wasp Woman, which had been produced and directed by Roger Corman. The original title was Rejuvenatrix, although it has become more popularly known as The Rejuvenator, and this included the UK and Brazil.

Production

The film originally came about through director Brian Thomas Jones and Steven Mackler, who would produce the film. Mackler contacted Jones after he was impressed with his 1984 short-film Overexposed, a film about photojournalists on assignment in El Salvador. Mackler made a deal with Sony Video Software - SVS Films - in 1987, which involved the creation of three feature films.

The filming of Rejuventrix took twenty-two days to shoot, two-days longer than scheduled. The project's expense came to approximately $230,000 after post production. The main filming location was in New York City, United States. The mansion within the film was located in New Jersey, with the film crew shooting the first four days of the project there.

Upon its release, Jones and Mackler had planned to use initial positive reviews to re-market the film as a "modern midnight movie". However SVS were less optimistic about the film and decided to book only a limited theatrical run of one week in New York. Jones believed the film had "cult potential but never got the opportunity". SVS also interfered with the film's title, of which there were several working titles, including "Scream Queen".

In the early 2014 interview for UK Horror Scene, Budrewicz described the film as "a marvellous, Gothic sci-fi frightener - a kooky and ever-so-slightly-kinky hybrid of Cronenberg, The Wasp Woman and Billy Wilder's noir classic Sunset Boulevard". Jones was disappointed that it never got the recognition he felt it deserved, but noted it still had a fanbase.

The film was Vivian Lanko's debut appearance. Married to actor Martin Donovan, she would only appear in two other films The Refrigerator (1991) and Simple Men (1992).

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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