31 Days of Horror- Day 9: From Beyond (1986)

(dir. Stuart Gordon)

Empire Pictures

*First time viewing

Based on H.P. Lovecraft’s story of the same name, From Beyond follows two scientists and a detective’s efforts to advance their sensory perception through a device that opens a breach to another dimension filled with evil, ravenous creatures. Yeah, it’s crazy.

From Beyond is a wet movie. Nearly every frame of the film is soaked in a gratuitous amount of extra-dimensional fluid and sexual overtones that always skirt the line between discomfort and perversion. At its most basic, From Beyond is a film made to disgust. This really shouldn’t come as a surprise given that it’s Stuart Gordon’s follow-up to Re-Animator. Re-Animator is a wonderfully gross film, but From Beyond tops it in terms of pushing the limits. If you remember Dr. Hill’s decapitated head between Megan Halsey legs in the Re-Animator, then you can get pretty close to imagining what the tone of From Beyond is like across its runtime. With almost all of the central cast and crew from Re-Animator returning for this film, it’s difficult not to compare the two. Yet, despite From Beyond’s gross-out intentions, it’s more ambitious with its ideas than former…which is ultimately the film’s triumph and detriment.

In typical Lovecraftian fashion, From Beyond taps into deep, cosmic, primordial horror that doesn’t make a ton of sense in the realm of specific details, at least how it’s depicted here. The threads of exactly what the characters are doing, or why, or how are sometimes lost, but man does the film look great in its blending of 1950s sci-fi aesthetics and Giallo films. Also great is the cast. Jeffrey Combs, Barabra Crampton, and Ken Foree, all horror legends, each add to the film in their own unique way, and offer a major assistance on the front of Gordon’s juggling act of tones. Ted Sorel, who plays the villainous Dr. Pretorius, provides plenty of menace, but it’s John Carl Buechler’s special effects that steal the show in terms of creating a larger threat. The influence of the effects work here can clearly be seen in James Gunn’s Slither and Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror. Even when the plot points don’t live up the special effects, a hand has got be given to Gordon for pushing his directorial skills and vision forward when he could have just made a Re-Animator sequel using the tricks he’d already shown us. What’s most impressive about From Beyond, is that it’s clearly the work of a director still testing his limits, and that’s a joy to watch. A sopping wet joy, but a joy nonetheless.

Scare Factor: 2/5 Gordon’s sensibilities lean more on perverse grotesqueries, and weird body horror than outright scares, but there’s enough grossness and weirdness to keep any horror fan engaged. From Beyond may be lesser than Re-Animator but it’s essential 80s horror viewing.