Stream it now From Beyond 1986

 

Wicked old school pulp fiction.. to bring living breathing things from an alternate reality ,.. fun monster flick can compare to re-animator rilly love the old lady and the pooch in the beginning ,,The slimy flesh eating worms are a trip...

From Beyond is another silly film directed by Stuart Gordon in 1986. F.B. is also based on a H.P. Lovecraft story starring Jeffrey Combs,Ken Foree(Dawn of the Dead) and "Scream Queen" Barbara Crampton.

Plot: Dr. Crawford Tillinghast (Jeffrey Combs)has created a device he calls the Resonator. The Dr. believes his device can stimulate the brains pineal gland and possibly cure schizophrenia. The resonator has the ability to reveal creatures from a parallel dimension and cause massive hallucinations, which the Dr. refers to as "Orgasms of the mind". As the creatures can also see humans, and are not very pleased about this,one of the floating creatures is released into our dimension, and kills off the Dr's assistant. Soon the police are involved wanting to shut down the Dr's experiments. After numerous self inflicted experiments, the Dr slowly goes insane and metamorphoses into a hideous deformed monster.

That's what I can remember for now as I re watched this intoxicated, since I first saw F.B in the 80's.
Ha ha ha , downbeat silly but fun.

F.B also got into censorship problems due to certain scenes involving S&M and bondage. Of course these have been restored in their entirety on the MGM DVD which contains some nice extras as well.

The films production values are decent but not great. The special effects are good, but the gore looks a bit too rubbery compared to today's standards.

More nostalgic stuff from the 80's "splatter-fest" era that will probably please the fans.

They don't make 'em like they used to! This is one movie that packs a punch. Forget about storyline, forget about character developemnt, and heck, while you're at it forget about any decent dialouge that isn't knowingly, stupidly, hilarious. What makes this film unforgetable is it's sheer "WOW" quality. The gore is relentless, the mutations grotesque, the special effects laughably brilliant. I love it.

once again jeffery combs and stuart gordon combine their chemistry to make frombeyond . from brain eating to bondage this film stimulates the pineal gland for erotic horror pleasure

Stuart Gordon has always sacrificed plot for making sure that you are thoroughly disturbed, uneasy, tense, and often down right disgusted. And, ya' know, he's pretty damn good at it. He has accomplished this goal in any number of genres: Re-Animator (sci-fi), Stuck (thriller), King of the Ants (drama). Make sure you take the preceding genre descriptions with a grain of salt as Gordon's films are a little hard to nail down. From Beyond is most like Re-Animator, has the least plot of any film listed, and seems to be Gordon's attempt to put as much debauchery in a single film and for the most part it's glorious. This dude must have monsters crawling around in his head that would make Dick Cheney blink. To top it all off, From Beyond was made just before CGI took over, so everything is drippy and nasty and sticky and a lot of fun.

A pair of physicists (Combs and Sorel) create a machine that causes our dimension to merge with another. They end up unleashing horrors--and sexual perversion--unlike any our world has ever seen before.


Dr. McMichaels (Barbara Crampton) gives head in "From Beyond"


"From Beyond" is one of those gory, goopy movies that you do NOT want to watch while eating. If you like fast-paced monster movies with a high quotient of mad doctors--there is only one out of the five major characters who isn't a doctor who is unhinged in some fashion--and you don't mind sexually-themed horror, then you'll enjoy the heck out of this movie.

With excellent special effects--particularly during the final battle against the monstrous creature from beyond--and great performances by all the actors, this movie is a fun ride. Although only the first few minutes of the film is actually based on H.P. Lovecraft's story of the same title, Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton both capture the obsession and the madness that was a hallmark of many of his characters and stories. Further, the creatures and the entire style of the movie evokes the atmosphere of Lovecraft's writings. Even better, the film provides some great laughs to offset the terror, with Ken Foree (best-known for his role in the original "Dawn of the Dead") serving double-duty as comic relief and Macho Action Hero and succeeding equally well at both.

"From Beyond" is an excellent movie to show at a Halloween party where adults or older teens make up those in attendence. If you want to get a copy to show, make sure you get the unrrated DVD director's cut, because it features some really cool scenes that were cut to earn it an R rating during its original release--such the scene where Dr. Bloch (Carolyn Purdy-Gordon) has her brain sucked out through her eye-socket and some of the bits of a tentacle-beast from Dimension Lovecraft getting to know Dr. Katherine McMichaels really well.

"From Beyond" is available at a discount from Amazon.com. You can also read other reviews and opinions about the movie by clicking on the link.


From Beyond
Starring: Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Ken Foree, Ted Sorel, Carolyn Purdy-Gordon and Bunny Summers
Director: Stuart Gordon

There aren't many writers that have existed that can match the level of bizarre creativity when it comes to horror than H.P. Lovecraft. His work has effected many forms of entertainment like video games and movies. Though I haven't seen every film based on his work, I still can say that so far Stuart Gordon has directed two of the best adaptations of Lovecraft's work I have seen. The first being The Re-Animator, and the other being From Beyond.

Watching From Beyond I felt similarities to this film with Full Moon Entertainment's Shadowzone, one of my favorites from the studio. I also liked the theme of humans medalling with things that shouldn't be bothered, and the consequences that emerge from these acts. Either Stuart Gordon and the people who adapt these stories are great at what they do, or I need to start to read H.P. Lovecraft's work.

The special effects are pretty good considering the time and budget. I loved seeing how Dr. Edward Pretorius' (Ted Sorel) body became twisted and misshapen after he crossed over to the other dimension his experiment was trying to peek into. I still don't get what the resonator (the machine they built for their experiment) was good for, but seeing the crazy monsters that came from it was enough for me.

Jeffrey Combs, who will be mostly remembered as Dr. Herbert West in The Re-Animator films, gives a great performance in this movie. Barbara Crampton was also great as Dr. Katherine McMichaels, therapist to Combs' character of Crawford Tillinghast. And last, but not least was Ken Foree, who is always a plus to see in movies. Unlike Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 that I felt used Foree's presence as a way to get horror fans into seeing that film, From Beyond actually uses him for his acting talents.

From Beyond is a bizarre movie, and one that is really hard to put into words without spoiling a lot of it. If you are a fan of 80's horror films, I would rank this as being among the better films I've seen from the decade. It's got great imagination, stellar special effects and a lot of memorable moments. It mixes sex, gore and violence in just the right way to make a fantastic horror film.

Let the geek flag fly. Or don't. The first (and worst) of this batch aims to be pretty damned mainstream, and almost hides its sci-fi-ness so deep under a cloud of allegory you can barely see anything else.
Invasion

was supposed to get its own post. An open-ended rant about the glory of the b-movie, Stuart Gordon and pre-CGI gore. Ah, well. After his outstanding work on Re-Animator, Mr. Gordon set his sights on another Lovecraft property, the teeny-tiny short story "From Beyond". I guess after the rush of the previous film, he felt he could just let 'er rip again, and to say teenage Josh was pleased with the results would be putting it mildly. Back from Re-Animator are Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton (as well as various characters in smaller roles). And like that film, From Beyond rolls over you like a Mack truck, encouraging an almost immediate repeat viewing. Dr. Pretorius and his assistant Crawford Tillinghast (Combs) have been working on a device called the "Resonator" which stimulates the pineal gland and allows those in its vicinity to see the things that are always around us, but that go undetected by our five senses. Trouble is, once you see them, they see you. In addition to that unfortunate situation, overstimulation of the pineal gland causes several other side effects, not the least of which is the hunger for other brains. Which you can suck out through your victim's eye-hole. Oh, and it apparently makes girls ri-donk-ulously horny. This might all sound pretty silly, but I assure you, while watching the film it'll make total sense. For me, From Beyond belongs right up there near, if not with, Re-Animator in the pantheon of cult classics, and not just because Barbara Crampton gets all dolled up in S&M gear. But that helps. Anyway, not to sound too "old man"-y, but when I was a young 'un, the only way to see From Beyond was to dig the tape out of the "Sci-Fi" bin in the Rite-Aid video rental section...and I considered myself a lucky fella every time their sh-tty, grainy copy was in. All hail DVD! The nifty new special edition looks great and even includes a few precious extra seconds (it's a fairly short film) of From Beyond goodness (not to mention behind the scenes stuff and commentaries to boot!).
Not enough bells and whistles (or ads!) for you? Check this out. Same post, prettier format.

(***):

A fun film. If you liked the tone of Re-Animator, you should like this one as well.

From Beyond is a hard movie to review. It has a loose plot and tries to stick to it, but ultimately becomes a special effects fest towards the end. Some of the effects are good and some not so good.

I dug the plot initially. It's kind of a cross between Re-Animator and The Thing. Basically there's a doctor who can't get enough out of his 5 senses so he needs a 6th sense. He discovers that there is a real way to achieve this. If you can stimulate the pineal gland in the brain and get it to grow enough it becomes the 6th and most sensual sense. The downfall is that the machine invented to stimulate it lets us come in to contact with things from beyond that unless stimulated we can't see them and they can't see us.

Well the doctor is killed by this thing and becomes one of them. Dr. Tillinghast (Jeffery Combs) his assisant and only witness is committed to a mental hospital, for his description of events makes him seem crazy.

Enter Dr. McMichaels (Barbara Crampton) an upstart psychologist who believes him and wants him released to replicate his experiments. Reluctantly he agrees when he knows his options are limited and he's released to her and a police sargeant (Ken Foree). Well things just get ludicris from here on out so if you want to know what happens track down a copy of this movie yourself. Trust me it's not easy. Mine is a laser disc tranfer as I'm sure no DVD has ever officially been released.

The thing that makes From Beyond a movie I can recommend is the acting. Crampton, and Foree are good, and Combs as usual is brilliant. If not for their screen presense it would have been hard to take this movie seriously at all.

The special effects could have been better although at times they were brialliant. Jeffery Combs make-up for example was amazing, but then we get a flying creature who looks pretty bad. Overall though the effects get a good passing grade, dated but passing.

The one thing that caused From Beyond to score lower then it should have was the loss of the plot as the movie moved on. I liked this movie at first because it was based on good ideas that were well explained. Well as the movie went on things were explained less and less and ideas gace way to effects. What were these things and what was their motivation? Overall though From Beyond is a pretty fun ride with good effects reminicsent of John Carpenters The Thing. I recommend it, but only to people who enjoy horror movies, and especially to gore hounds such as myself.