R.I.P., Stuart Gordon

I'm sorry to report the death of Chicago horror icon/auteur Stuart Gordon. Though he was best known for his major masterpiece, RE-ANIMATOR, and, perhaps, his connection to HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS (whereupon Disney almost broke him entirely), he made many of the greatest horror films of the 80s, 90s, and 00s, which always brimmed with dark comedy and social commentary––from the best Full Moon Picture THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM, to the primordial suburban stew of KING OF THE ANTS, to the best rock-em-sock-robot movie ever made, ROBOT JOX (yeah, that's right, PACIFIC RIM), to the underrated mayhem of DOLLS, to his pitch-black indictment of modern indulgence STUCK, to all his other Lovecraft adapations, FROM BEYOND, DAGON, and the oft-overlooked CASTLE FREAK. He was a great theater director, too, and I was lucky enough to see NEVERMORE in 2011 (his "Jeffrey Combs-as-Edgar Allan Poe" one-man-show) and wished for years for his production of TASTE to come to NYC (it hasn't yet). He certainly left his mark on modern horror––and, as Don Coscarelli remembers––he summed up the genre perhaps better than anyone: "Horror films are a rehearsal for our own deaths."