Re-Animator director Stuart Gordon dies aged 72
(The Guardian Books News)

Director made his name with shock theatre in Chicago before turning to gory screen horror - and creating Disney classic Honey I Shrunk the KidsStuart Gordon, the film-maker who shot to prominence with the mid-80s cult horror film Re-Animator before co-creating the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids series, has died aged 72. His family confirmed the news to Variety magazine; the cause was not released.Gordon, who was born and grew up in Chicago, began producing radical theatre shows as a student, setting up a company in 1968 called Screw Theater. He staged an anti-war adaptation of Peter Pan (inspired by the Democratic convention riots of that year) which got him and his then girlfriend (and later wife) Carolyn Purdy arrested for obscenity; the case received national attention but the charges were later dropped. He then set up shop as the Organic Theater - described as a `take-off-your-clothes, scream and bleed theater` - which he ran for 16 years: among its successes was the Gordon-directed premiere production of David Mamet´s Sexual Perversity in Chicago in 1974. Continue reading...