"It ATE him!" A review of From Beyond (1986)

Excellent new artwork for the Blu-ray release.

I'm a big fan of H.P. Lovecraft. Since the time I was in middle school, I read everything the man ever wrote, and loved every page of it. But I have a confession to make: The only reason I ever became interested in Lovecraft in the first place was because of Stuart Gordon's Re-Animator. I'm not sure what the status quo is on this topic, but I can imagine for many it was the other way around.

Back when video stores were still a thing (they're not anymore, right?), I used to have my poor mother drive me all around town to dozens of obscure and rundown rental places so I could look for horror flicks I wanted to see. I'd read about Re-Animator in a book called Terror on Tape: A Complete Guide to Over 2,000 Horror Movies on Video by a guy named James O'Neill. I carried this book around with me like some kind of profane Bible, grazing the shelves of King Video and Pic-a-Flic searching for the films I'd circled in its pages. Based on O'Neill's description, Re-Animator was my Holy Grail. Eventually, after months of searching, I found it, rented it, and made a bootleg copy using two VCRs in my bedroom. And it did not disappoint. In fact, I was so taken with the film that when I finally got around to reading the source material, though I found it engaging in a different sort of way, I couldn't help but feel that it didn't match up to Gordon's gory masterpiece. My first thought: Where's all the eyeball popping and severed heads? My second: where's all the SEX? (This is going somewhere, I promise...)

It's precisely these elements that make Stuart Gordon and Brian Yunza's vision of the Lovecraft canon function at a higher level than almost any other "movieazation" of classic horror fiction. They took the best of what was brewed up in Lovecraft's Cthulu-tangled brain and ran it through the 80's rinse cycle of bright colors, squishy special-effects, and gratuitous sex. What we end up with is less of an adaptation of the stories at hand and more of a re-interpretation. This distinction is very important to make.

And From Beyond is no exception to this formula. In fact, we might say that even more than the masterful Re-Animator, From Beyond embraces the added elements with unabashed enthusiasm. The whole picture is a kaleidoscope of vibrant neon, moist make-up and special-effects, and a leather-clad Barbara Crampton who just wants to "see more." All offset by Charles Band's insanely tension laden score.

For those of you unfamiliar with the plot of From Beyond, it tells the tale of Dr. Crawford Tillinghast (Jeffery Combs), a young physicist assisting Dr. Edward Petorious (Ted Sorel) in the creation and fine-tuning of the "Resonator," a device which, when activated, stimulates the pineal gland and allows us a sort of sight beyond sight. And, since this is a horror flick, the experiment of course goes horribly wrong, ending with a headless Petorious and scared-shitless Tillinghast. The rest of the film details Dr. Katherine McMichaels' (Barbara Crampton) attempt to recreate the experiment with Tillinghast in order to prove him innocent of murdering Petorious. And if you want to know more (as we used to say at the end of book reports), you'll have to see it yourself.

Like a precursor to John Carpenter's The Thing.

 
As I've already alluded to, I think this is not only a fantastic film, but a fantastic adaptation of the Lovecraft story of the same title. While maybe not as clean-cut and funny as Re-Animator, it's still a leap and a bound above many of its contemporaries. Jefferey Combs returns in his second run as a Lovecraftian protagonist, and while he lacks the snark and snide of Herbert West, we can't help but love the guy. Crampton, whom I absolutely love, picks up a slightly more substantial role than her run in Re-Animator, and blows us away with her transition from a bun-haired broach wearing psychologist to the bondage wearing sensation seeker she becomes. The roles played by Ted Sorel and Ken Foree (Dawn of the Dead) are nothing to pass over, either. Sorel is easily one of the most frightening villains of the 80's. I mean, the guy just oozes sleaze and menacing tone. And Foree manages to lighten the mood while never taking the film in the direction of spoof. Not to mention we see him rocking around in a very revealing pair of bikini briefs, but that's a different post all together...

I do want to take a moment talk about the actual transfer to Blu-ray that Scream Factory has given us here. I hopped on the Blu-ray train late in the game, waiting, much like I did with DVDs, for the players to become incredibly inexpensive. And while I love to watch big budget movies filmed in high definition, the vast majority of my library is films from the 70s and 80s. I find that, with a really good transfer, Blu-ray can make available a whole dimension of detail that was originally unavailable to anyone who missed it on the big screen the first time around. From Beyond does just that. The crystal clear transfer that Scream Factory, I'm sure, painstakingly put together really pays off when it comes to textural detail. The characters' clothing is especially impressive. I'm thinking specifically of the incredibly itchy looking wool sweater that Tillnghast has on at the beginning. We can see every hair on this thing, and we really get a sense of the level of detail the film makers originally intended. McMichaels' gently textured houndstooth coat during the first asylum scene also feels this way. But where it really comes through is in the make-up and effects. One would feel that added clarity might possibly downplay the realism of the practical effects. Well, with From Beyond, this is not the case. In fact, it's quite the opposite. The added clarity makes John Carl Buechler's effects work seem sickeningly real. Things shimmer and undulate. They ooze and writhe. All bathed in a neon glow that screams, "Look here, you don't want to miss this!" Pay attention to the red spot on Crawford Tillinghast's forehead slowly becoming more and more visible as he undergoes his "transformation." It's detail like this that was completely missing from the VHS transfer I saw back in the 90's.

To be honest, I don't have much to say about this release in the way negative criticism. I'd like to have had the option to play the original soundtrack rather than the Dolby HD or 5.1 versions. But really, in light of all the other things this Blu-ray has going for it, that seems minor.

Ahh just like Mom used to make.

I really hope that Scream Factory keeps up their impressive run of Blu-ray re-releases. We're so lucky to see some of these long forgotten pictures brought back to life with such unparalleled visual vigor. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a release of Brian Yunza's deliciously depraved Society to appear sometime in the future. I got to see that once in its original 35mm, and YOWZA. That's some sick shit.

Until next time, remember: "It's just a body, but my mind is indivisible!"