From Beyond 1986 MGM Home Video   Buy It Now

H.P. Lovecraft and Stuart Gordon are two names that have gone very well together for over twenty years now. The director of Re-Animator, Dreams in the Witch House, and Dagon has always done well when it comes to brining Lovecraft’s work to life. Out of all of Gordon’s films that have made their way to DVD however, From Beyond is the one that has lost, at least until now.

Being a fan of Lovecraft’s work for many, many years now, From Beyond is actually a very short story, one that is actually just a few pages long and is actually covered within the first few minutes of the movie, but Gordon manages to keep with the feel of Lovecraft throughout the film. From Beyond is a very typical, Lovecraftian degree of the bizarre where we find Dr. Edward Pretorius (Ted Sorel) has been working on a machine that he hopes will stimulate the pineal glad and unfortunately he succeeds and opens a gateway to another world. His fellow researcher Crawford Tillinghast (Jeffrey Combs) survives the incident and is taken to a psychiatric hospital as he strange tale sounds unbelievable.

A young, brilliant psychiatrist, Dr. Katherine McMichaels (Barbara Crampton) isn’t quite so sure that Crawford is crazy and along with detective Buford 'Bubba' Brownlee (Ken Foree), they return to the house to investigate. Pretorius however isn’t dead and has become something otherworldly. Now Crawford must try and find a way to stop Pretorius from accomplishing him goal of brining our world and the one beyond together, but when Crawford himself has his pineal glad awoken, it may be too late.

From Beyond does have a very strange vibe to it, but that’s what you expect from any Lovecraft story. While it was, as mentioned, a short story, what Gordon accomplishes with taking the tale beyond what was written is really quite good, not to mention that he’s brining back together Combs and Crampton, both of who appeared in Re-Animator, but as Gordon himself states in the bonus material, their roles are reversed from what was seen in that film.

Expect to find the strange and bizarre within the dark recess of this film. Much of the focus as far as horror is concerned is in regards to Pretorius and his slow transformation. First, we see the doctor seems to be dead, having his head removed from his body completely just before Crawford is arrested and taken to the mental ward, but when his machine is activated again, he return in a very different form and each time has transformed even more, almost becoming something that resembles the monstrosities seen in John Carpenter’s remake of The Thing.

Ken Foree is a great addition to the film and is very much the opposite of the character that most know him for in Dawn of the Dead. His easy going attitude pairs up well with Combs, who in this film is a little more neurotic and paranoid, though for a very good reason, and Crampton’s straight ahead, analytical approach, though that melts away once she’s been exposed to the machine and the sexual side of her takes over. From Beyond may have a very slim number when it comes to the primary cast and characters, but the ones found here have perfect chemistry and they work magnificently together.

Not only is this the first time that From Beyond has been released on DVD, but there is another treat in store for fans of the movie, and that is that the movie is now uncut. The MPAA had their way with the movie, back when they were actually taking time to try and censor movies like they had intended instead of bringing lawsuits against those using peer-to-peer clients. Thanks to the advances in technology, the footage that would normally be completely lost to us is now restored and flawlessly worked into the film. From Beyond has more gore than it ever did before, though I still think that Re-Animator tops it when it comes to the sticky red stuff.

All too often, studio will release horror films, especially older tiles, with little to no extra material, but that’s not the case here. Apparently MGM and Fox understand that in fact, From Beyond is a popular movie among fans and it needs to be treated with care and consideration. From Beyond includes commentary with Stuart Gordon, Brian Yuzna, Barbra Crampton, and of course, Jeffery Combs. There are a number of featurettes that examine the film from Gordon’s perspective as well as the how they managed to find and restore the missing footage that the MPAA had them remove from the movie. Richard Band provides an interview about composing the movies soundtrack, a photo montage, and a storyboard to film comparison for a number of key scenes from the movie.

From Beyond may not be quite as good as Gordon’s prior Lovecraft adaptation, Re-Animator, but it’s still a fantastic movie and impressive that he and the creators of From Beyond could take a short story and continue with the theme and feel. From Beyond is a classic, one that fans have remembered for quite a number of years and it’s appearance of DVD at long last is something that all can appreciate and you’ll find that if you’ve never seen it, From Beyond isn’t one of the common, cliché horror films that taints the marketplace today. DVD is such easy prey.
 

-mike-