#jeff combs

[destroyersopera]

Some pictures I found yesterday of Jeff in his theater days. Truly lots of breakthroughs happening in the field of Jeffrey Combs studies recently! Many of these had to be heavily cropped and I have the sources saved, so feel free to reach out for more info :)

[fleshpark]

forgot to post my Dino Bob tattoo a few weeks back when I got it done - sorry Bob, had to immortalise you somehow

[joe-spookyy]

thinking about this jeffrey combs tweet posted at 2:25 AM from his fucking ipad

[nothingenoughao3]

So y'all know how Jeff Combs was doing a theater production which someone involved with Re-Animator saw him in, and how he's suggested that the character he played there influenced how he played Herbert West.

I relayed this to @andalusiapunk and they were like "Oh! That explains it! He's theater-acting!"

I am not an expert by any means, but I did misspend my teenage years in a magnet school as a theater student. I understood immediately what they meant by theater-acting and I'm mad I didn't come up with it.

A lot of this has to do with Herbert's overall physicality. We all love talking about how he's hyper-dramatic, right? How he moves in a particular way that is extremely precise and sharp and, to be on point, theatrical. How he spins the tape recorder in his hand; how he offers Meg's heart in BRIDE; how he fumbles or manipulates syringes in various scenes.

None of that's in the script and it's not necessarily justified by what's happening... unless you're trying to make sure the audience in the backass end of the theater can see you're holding something small, like a tape recorder or a syringe or a human heart. As I observed elsewhere, you can trick the audience into 'seeing' or 'hearing' things that aren't present onstage or screen if your body language insists on its reality.

And, not to get into super-nerdy film history, but: originally theater-acting and movie-acting were one and the same. Early films are blocked like plays, they have extended sequences without constant cutting between shots (like an audience watching a play), and the extremely clear, over-enunciation of a play-actor trying to make sure those poor bastards in the back can hear what they're saying. And like a play, all acting was heavily rehearsed and expected to hit the same points and produce the same results every time.

What changed this was Marlon Brando introducing the idea of improvisation into movie-acting, a choice which also led to a greater flexibility in movie-acting... including delivery of lines. A more "natural", verisimilitudinous delivery became acceptable for films. This doesn't make either style bad, to be clear: each serves its purpose.

Bruce Abbott (to name the most obvious example) is doing movie-acting. He's got some Protagonist Accent going for him, but he has a clear variety of tone and a great deal of subtlety with his facial expressions and delivery. The same goes for the rest of the cast, although David Gale kind of straddles the line between these two styles.

Herbert's delivery is pure theater-acting. When he and Dan invade the morgue, Dan is whispering--but Herbert is stage whispering, which is why he hisses so much. I've made jokes on here before about how Herbert was born on Skid Row in Little Shop of Horrors-verse, and he thinks he's supposed to be in a musical... and, you know, LSOH is a film based on a play, only in that movie, EVERYBODY is theater-acting.

Anyhow, lotta words to find a different way to compliment Combs and the rest of the REANI cast on their acting, because I live for sorcery enjoying these damn movies.

[zeviolett]

i can’t stop drawing him oh god

[mysterygothmoth]

Made this for @o-bromio, my beloved friend and biggest creature of them all. Happy belated birthday <3

[soullesssenpai]

PSA for Combs fans!

I’d be a bad horror diehard if I didn’t let all the Tumblr folks know that Jeffrey Combs is in a movie currently playing at Sundance, and there are CONSTANT re-animator references. Barbara Crampton makes a few brief cameo appearances as well - but if you’re a combs fan (like I am) that’s been starving for quality content, the movie is called Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls, and Jeff is in it a TON. I don’t wanna spoil it but there are SO MANY re-ani references (the writer/director is clearly a diehard) and the practical effects are super fun. If you can stomach the cringe humor of Onyx himself, this is a great entry in the combs canon (and may or may not at one point feature Jeff in his underwear). 

[ardentlyalien]

I made some Reanimator stickers because Herbert West is a whole mood

[natesmindmuseum]

hehe reanimator cosplay/costume sillies

[fleshpark]

Rip Herbert West you would have loved ket and gay clubs

[joe-spookyy]

finished the reanimator novelization and here are my notes.

stoner dan cain is real and true and he’s in my dream blunt rotation

in the comic his middle name was elston but in this it’s jonathan. what’s the truth…

canonically canadian herbert was shocking but not as shocking as the serum he used on his shitty roommate to turn his semen green forever.

also he’s 24. what a young fellow.

this book was not edited very carefully. not to be a dweeb but i haven’t seen anyone mention the amount of grammatical errors, incorrect references (looking at u larry talbot/tolbot), lack of attention paid to paragraph cuts in the reprint, and literal page by page contradictions on the lore. (claiming hill’s brain/head can feel every sensation that his body feels and then literally on the next page saying that there is no shared sensation)

meg gets a lot more character depth here and i love it i love her meg halsey you will always be famous

and yes she was a horse girl. this is very important to the lore in my opinion.

everyone’s seen the famous “dan cain tells a cop he has AIDS so he can sneak into the hospital scene” but i can tell you all with certainty that it doesn’t make any more sense in context. he could have lied about anything. how and why did he land on that.

they’re a lot clearer about how exactly the reagent works which i thought was neat, although they kept describing it as yellow. that shit is geen

herbert west canonically not Not queer (says nothing when accused of it, looks at floor awkwardly) and everyone in the hospital has clocked him.

way more in depth about how much of a freak dr hill is.

they named all the reanimated corpses which was nice cause even when i’m watching the movie there’s too much going on to recognize any of them so it cleared things up and i finally comprehended for the first time that it was hill’s intestines that strangled herbert and that it was because of the reagent overdose. or whatever. that was probably obvious but i missed it on every one of my watches.

herbert mentions saints and how he wishes gruber could be canonized. this fuels my raised catholic herbert vs raised protestant meg theory and adds to their already powerful beef.

the controversial laid to rest/plagiarist line is in the book sort of. and i’m sorry to say it’s laid to rest. they did swap up some other lines (side note: why did they mess with who’s going to believe a talking head get a job in a sideshow) so this could mean nothing it is just interesting.

this line was crazy.

TLDR: not the greatest piece of literature but pretty fun and adds some cool background information for the characters. would reccomended.

[nothingenoughao3]

Putting together a crowdfunding project so we can all buy Jeffrey Combs this shirt

[n8tism]

b movie dr strange my beloved

[devilconcrete]

Jeffrey Combs was born and every casting director said "we need that guy in business attire"

[70zcowboy]

IM MEETING JEFF IN DECEMBER

[natesmindmuseum]

UPDATE ON THE REANIMATOR HAND PUPPY PROP!!!!!

his dumb ass is free standing now. thoigh he is held together with an unfortunate lump of clay, he is standing! just waiting for the clay to harden a little, then I may paint it.

I also added some reagent goop on him and megs heart prop. His eye is rubbing off a bit to reveal some purple which is odd but hey it's just gotta last one night so it's okay!

my partner and I will def post pics or our costumes (they will be dressed as dan)