Stuart Gordon, a director best known for lavishly lurid horror films with a piercing sense of humor, notably the cult favorite “Re-Animator,” died on Tuesday in Van Nuys, Calif. He was 72.

His wife, Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, an actress who appeared in many of his films and with whom he founded the Chicago-based Organic Theater Company, said the cause was multiple organ failure brought on by kidney disease.

Mr. Gordon’s generally low-budget films often combined the body horror of John Carpenter or David Cronenberg’s films with the titillation found in Roger Corman’s. He said that surprising moviegoers was an important part of his work, and he did his best to exceed the everyday terrors of many slasher movies.

“There is a side of me that likes to break through clichés and wake people up,” Mr. Gordon told Rolling Stone in 1986.