From Beyond (1986)

From Beyond (an apt title considering that’s where this DVD practically came from), opens in the dead of night as Crawford Tillinghast (played by the always reliable Jeffrey Combs) is diligently at work in the lab of the brilliant physicist, Dr. Edward Pretorius. In Pretorius’ lab, the Doctor and his assistant are hard at work on the Doctor’s newest invention, the Resonator, a machine that holds the key to the next step in human evolution. By use of resonant waves, the Resonator stimulates the dormant pineal gland buried deep within the brain. With an awakened pineal gland, one develops a sixth sense and is able to see past the veil of reality to look upon another dimension and take one step closer to God. It should be noted that this other dimension has flying, carnivorous eels, unlocks your basest human desires, gives you a raging hard on, and has “IT,” a nameless creature that likes to eat heads. You can see where this is going. Needless to say, axes fly, Dr. Pretorius’ head is bitten off like “a gingerbread man,” and poor Crawford Tillinghast is arrested for murder and thrown into an insane asylum. Then the credits roll.

The TITLE CREDITS.

After that whip bang opening, we’re introduced to our protagonist, the girl wonder Dr. Katherine McMichaels (played by Barbara Crampton, the only woman in cinematic history to literally receive “head”), a hot shot psychiatrist who’s been called in to assess Crawford’s mental state and see if the now manic assistant can stand trial for the murder of Dr. Pretorius. Convinced the only way to find out what truly happened is to repeat the experiment, Dr. McMichaels, under the supervision of police officer Buford “Bubba” Brownlee (played by horror movie staple, Ken Foree), takes Crawford back to Pretorius’ lab and activates the Resonator. You don’t need a stimulated pineal gland to figure out what happens next. To give any more details would ruin the fun of the movie as it takes some exquisitely gory twists and ends in the only way a Lovecraft story can end in: madness.

Much like its predecessor, Re-Animator, From Beyond is a tightly-woven 90-minute film that features a ton of story, delightful B-movie actors and stomach-churning gore. Working with most of the same crew (both in front and behind the lens) of Re-Animator, director Stuart Gordon weaves a wicked, tragic tale of Lovecraftian proportions.

The visual and make-up effects, while dated, provide the nausineating feeling one should feel when one is forced to evolve violently. The make-up effects are particulary gruesome, as faces and heads are pulled off and people melted. Dr. Pretorius (played with menacing abandon by Ted Sorel) in particular gets to showcase the make-up teams slimey imaginations of what a man imbued with Cthulu-like powers would look like. The look of the film is crisp and clean, with it switching to a sickly hue of pink and blue whenever we glimpse the other dimension.

As a follow up to what was started with Re-Animator, From Beyond builds upon the idea that man’s greatest tragedies often start out with the noblest of intentions.