Leofwine_draca The cast and crew of the horror hit RE-ANIMATOR team up again for this stomach-churning ride through (literally) the human mind. Once again using Lovecraft as source material, Gordon and friends take the original story and add their own gruesome elements to the stew. Much overlooked alongside its more popular and altogether more famous brother RE-ANIMATOR, FROM BEYOND, while lacking some of the frenetic pace and macabre gags which made that film so good, still stands alone as a deliriously gory horror film, full of slime, blood, and body bits.The film works best when it sticks close to Lovecraft's original tale, and the opening scenes in which Jeffrey Combs sees the mysterious eel-like things floating around in the air invoke thrills and fear at the same time. Unfortunately, as the plot progresses it rapidly unfolds and moves to a hospital, which is where the film is at a low point. However the climax - a predictably slimy and visceral conclusion - is well worth waiting for, if only to watch the special effects.The acting is definitely tongue-in-cheek and in this respect is effective all round. Jeffrey Combs can do no wrong, even in the worst of bad films, and he's once again on hand to deliver the chuckles and chills with his particular brand of over-acting. Combs' transformation into a monster is rightly disturbing to watch. Barbara Crampton makes for a good heroine and looks very fetching in a black leather outfit, something you probably won't see anywhere else. As well as the two leads, DAWN OF THE DEAD's very own Ken Foree has a comic relief role as a policeman caught up in the horrific events. Watching Foree prance around in underpants made me think just how much I like this great actor, it's a shame he hasn't been in more films since Romero's classic gave him a certain cult status.The special effects are the real stars of FROM BEYOND, and they range from the typical (brain eating, eyeball gouging) to the superb (big slimy monster things). The effects are used a lot and all are totally brilliant in conception, being wonderfully weird and odd, especially the slime creature and the monster in the basement. With a spine-tingling soundtrack and collaboration from three notable names in horror - Charles Band (a cheapie producer who now owns Full Moon Entertainment), Brian Yuzna (a delightfully sick individual) and finally Stuart Gordon, there is no way this film could miss the mark really. Overall, FROM BEYOND is a delightfully entertaining film which thankfully never takes itself too seriously and can be watched over and over again.

MattBirk It's unfortunate, but From Beyond can't help but be compared to the superior Re-Animator. Both films are directed by Stuart Gordon, star the same two leads, and are influenced by Lovecraft, so it's hard not to make comparisons. While on paper they seem similar, the movies themselves are quite different in terms of quality, unfortunately. From Beyond seemed not to try hard enough to create some type of structure to keep the story afloat, whereas Re-Animator perfectly meshed the horror/comedy genres and created some fantastic scenes with sound structure. Basically, From Beyond felt too silly and campy for its own good, you can attribute that to both the direction and the acting. The slim and ick-factor are both here, but the typical charm and enjoyment factors aren't.The overall idea is creepy in itself (unknown dimensions), but the execution of the story seemed to be lacking. The opening moments reveal the protagonist, but then the following 80 minutes nothing really comes from it. The story seemed to go absolutely nowhere, and in fact I could hardly tell you what it was trying to accomplish. And, of course, there were all those sexual undertones, where they necessary to the story, who knows? Maybe I failed to grasps the film's overall message of sexual exploration and all that, but what was given was scarce and more importantly lame.Like I said, it's hard not to compare this film to the vastly superior Re-Animator. While the special effects here are fantastic (I love the 80s gore effects), they can't save From Beyond from being dull and joyless. Not a disastrous movie but the movie doesn't even close to reaching the heights of other 80s sci-fi classics.

jadavix From Beyond, for all its fantastic source material, is really nothing more than a tiresome Hellbound Heart rip off. When the spooky scientist who has crossed into the other dimension keeps appearing in ever more deformed shapes, I couldn't help yawning. You're supposed to be frightened and horrified. You're not. He's like a party guest that won't leave.The attempt to shoehorn sex into a Lovecraft story would have the great horror maestro turning in his grave. It's sacrilegious, and of course, not even handled well. Apparently crossing over into a transdimensional vortex doesn't just deform the body and make your forehead grow worms. It also makes you... horny. But for all those freaks out there, don't think that that means you're going to see monster-on-human sex or anything like that, just a stupid scene where the scientist-creature rips off a girl's top. This is "explained" by a laughable scene where the heroes are apparently going through the scientist's video collection and find a bondage porno. When you are working from one of the world's greatest horror writers, do you really have to try so hard to rip off a horror novel that came out the year before? You may remember that one of the things that made Barker's early fiction so transgressive and dangerous were his intimations of BDSM. In Lovecraft, well, you'd be hard pressed to find any such reference. The man was clearly not interested in love or sex and this is part of his success; the man's world was utterly scientific in its refusal to acknowledge humanity: he was the horror writer for the post-Darwinian age. In short, he'd have scoffed at this nonsense.Look out for the scene at the beginning where the other scientist, played by Jeffrey Combs, who has been institutionalized after witnessing what happens to his colleague, is frothing at the mouth and raving about the things he saw, and actually starts shouting "why don't they believe me? Why don't they believe me?" Think about it. He has just witnessed the most incredible discovery ever made by any man in human history. As a scientist, he should know this, so why would he expect ANYONE to believe him? He is either actually crazy, and therefore it is a good thing he is locked up, or a total moron. The movie doesn't want us to believe either, yet it provides us this evidence to the contrary.All up, this is a very stupid and crass movie, the equivalent of using the master of horror's work as toilet paper.

Gregory Mucci As someone who has never read a single HP Lovecraft tale, or even knows much about the context of which his stories are derived from, it's always exciting to watch an adaptation of one of his works. Having seen Stuart Gordon's previous HP Lovecraft adaptation Re- Animator, I went into this film with a sense of direction, but one that can easily be pushed off course by the unknown notoriety of the beloved horror author. What I received from From Beyond was a mixed bag of two many horror genres overlapping each other, creating an enjoyable yet disjointed pyramid of horror complexities.From Beyond, which should be stated is "loosely" based on an HP Lovecraft short story, begins with scientist Dr. Crawford Tillinghast (Jeffrey Combs), who has been working on a Tesla like machine called The Resonator, which allows one to see beyond the accessible reality, due to a stimulation of the pineal gland. It's all very scientific, but the pineal gland delivers melatonin, which affects light/dark, wake and sleep (which when tampered with in the case of The Resonator, enlarges it producing headaches, and a drug like addiction to be near The Resonator's pulse). In order not to be declared insane and locked away for the supposed murder of his mentor Dr. Edward Pretorius (Ted Sorel), Tillinghast, Dr. Katherine McMichaels (Barbara Crampton), and Detective Bubba Brownlee (Ken Foree) must reactivate The Resonator in order to prove his sanity.Like other horror films dealing with alternate dimensions, otherworldly realities, or just plain outer space, what lies beyond the conventional eye tends to always be depraved, leaning towards the phallic, or the torturous leather bound. With Clive Barker's Hellraiser, we were introduced to the demonic S&M world of Pinhead and his cenobites, who fed off the fears and sexually deviant behavior of their victims. In Ridley Scott's Alien, the confines of space were crafted in HR Geiger's sexually twisted eye, with the alien penetrating the victims mouth in order to impregnate those aboard the unsuspecting ship. Now in Stuart Gordon's From Beyond, we are thrust (no pun intended) into the sexually depraved world of a mad scientist, one that inevitably reaches into the alternate dimension, giving us phallic, mutated body parts and leather clad sexual cravings.From Beyond is a science fiction horror film that knows where it wants to go, but has an incredibly difficult time jumping over the other films that have done what it has before. Watching the mutation of Dr. Edward Pretorius just isn't as enjoyable when it feels like a poor imitation of John Carpenter's The Thing, writhing out of the body of its victim. Don't get me wrong, the special effects of Mark Shostrom and the special make-up effects by the uncredited artist Bill Forsche is very well crafted, they just all feel like cheapened retreads. Also being set primarily in the attic of a creepy estate, and dealing with sexual depravity, From Beyond can't seem to hurdle over Hellraiser, another film which took place mostly in an attic, dealt with sexual depravity and dealt with leather clad deviants.Showcasing over the top acting by the great horror icon Jeffrey Combs (Re-Animator) and a once again pitch perfect portrayal of a tough as nails cop by Ken Foree (Dawn of the Dead), we are left wanting to fall away with the story HP Lovecraft left us and the horror that Stuart Gordon has produced. However, the fall is only riddled with the debris of what was once exciting and fantastic, depraved and twisted. From Beyond is an exciting premise stuffed inside a haunted house, wrapped around the pleasures of pain and torture; the pain and torture that unfortunately befalls the viewers as we are left with cold leftovers.