‘It ate him… bit off his head… like a gingerbread man!‘
Stuart Gordon created one of the most beloved cult horror films of all time when he dropped his debut film, Re-Animator, in 1985. That film was a freaky H.P. Lovecraft adaptation starring Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton about a mad scientist who causes havoc when pushing the limits of what scientific experimentation can achieve. A year later, Gordon followed up Re-Animator with From Beyond, a freaky H.P. Lovecraft adaptation starring Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton about a mad scientist who causes havoc when pushing the limits of what scientific experimentation can achieve. If it ain’t broke…
Dr Edward Pretorius (Ted Sorel), a lunatic, creates a machine that stimulates the pineal gland, allowing him to see and interact with interdimensional creatures. Why anyone would want this to happen is unclear. Sure enough, he promptly goes mad. A group of doctors led by Pretorius’ assistant Dr Crawford Tillinghast (Combs) and Dr Katherine McMichaels (Crampton) attempt to recover and understand the machine for themselves. Horror legend Ken Foree (Dawn of the Dead) also appears, sometimes wearing nothing but tiny red Y-fronts, always a captivating look.
As is to be expected from anything from Gordon (or from producer Brian Yuzna for that matter), it is the gnarly practical effects that are the real star of this movie. While the overall story is perhaps not as successful or as affecting as Re-Animator, the effects are at least as eye-popping, maybe even more so. Crampton, given a much meatier role here, excels throughout (despite the camera leering over her at any opportunity; it was 1986 after all), and Combs is as weird and wonderful as ever, but as previously alluded to, the plot is not really that important here.
Viewed through a modern lens in which we are starved of the kind of bombastic practical effects utilised here, From Beyond has only become better with age. This is visceral, innovative and unique horror cinema from a true auteur.
