Fans of Re-Animator, Stuart Gordon, H.P. Lovecraft, or just good old-fashioned musical theater are in for a deliciously tasteless treat, provided they can get to LA by March 27th. That's how long Gordon's new Re-Animator: The Musical will have its initial run at the Steve Allen Theater. Though based on the wildly enthusiastic, packed and blood-soaked (thanks to a "Splash Zone" -- i.e. the first few rows of the theater) house I experienced last night when I checked out the show, I'd expect this run to be extended. After the performance, I chatted with Gordon about the strange journey his macabre masterpiece has enjoyed on its way to the stage. (For Re-Animator proves, like its protagonist Herbert West, that there is no death -- only rebirth.) Read what Gordon had to say after the jump.

On the music:

I can't say enough good things about the composer, Mark Nutter. We worked on this for almost three years, developing it. And he just kept adding more songs. I mean, this thing is like an opera. I think there's ten minutes of spoken dialogue in the whole play. It's wall to wall music. That was something we never expected. But it's great. Mark is amazing. He's a really versatile composer.

When I first started on this, I wrote up a possible song list – where I thought the music could go, where some of the songs could go. But it was Mark who came in and said, "I think this should be a tango. This should be a waltz. This should be..." He really figured out what the genre should be.

On the Splash Zone:

In terms of bloodletting, it was one of these things where, we previewed it for a couple of weeks, and after every preview the audience was saying, "More blood!" By the end of it I was saying, "Boy, you guys really want to swim out of here. Is that what you're saying? It would be like The Shining – we'd have three feet of blood in here." But I think it's fun, having that Splash Zone. Those are the most popular seats in the house. [Laughs.]

On the new Dr. Hill:

Jesse Merlin is an amazing actor. And he's very young. He just had his thirty-third birthday. I told him once that he reminded me of Margaret Hamilton, who was in her twenties when she played the Wicked Witch of the West. But she has a kind of bearing, of being older and creepier.

On the new Herbert West:

Graham Skipper. George Wendt is the one who discovered him. George was in New York doing Hairspray. He got invited to a cabaret show that Graham was in. When we started working on this he said, "I know just the guy to play Herbert West." Graham came out here – he's from New York – and he was absolutely right. This is the guy. I'm feeling great that we can give him what is really his west coast debut. He's an amazing actor. I think he's got a great career ahead of him.

On whether the show will eventually move to New York:

In theater that's always the ultimate goal, to take it to New York. I'm not sure that this is a Broadway show. I think maybe it's more like an off-Broadway show. Because it's kind of like a little chamber musical. I think it's more along the lines of Little Shop of Horrors, or a smaller piece like that. It would be wonderful to take it to New York. But I'd like to see if we can run it here for a while first.

On whether, like Hairspray, Re-Animator could go from screen to stage to screen again:

You know, it's funny, people have suggested that. And it would be kind of hilarious if it did. If we did another musical version of Re-Animator as a film. We'd come full circle at that point. Nothing's out of the question. [Laughs.]