From Beyond

It's been a while since I visited the world of horror. It's been even longer since I visited the world of Stuart Gordon and his Lovecraftian movies. The last time and up until now only time I had watched one of his movies was when I watched Re-Animator for the first time back in 2013. 

Now it is 2015 and I have just now watched From Beyond. I know, I'm terrible at keeping up with my TBW list. 

Barbara Crampton, Jeffery Combs, and the aforementioned director Stuart Gordon all returned for this movie in 1986 shortly on the heels of 1985's Re-Animator. You might think it'd be just a money grab, but it isn't. This movie is pretty darn good for what it is. 

Joining the headliners in this movie were Ted Sorel and Ken Foree. Ted Sorel is someone who wasn't in a lot of movies before he passed away, but he certainly made an impression here thanks to some serious make-up skills. Ken Foree, on the other hand, is easily a familiar face to me and it's nice to see familiar faces in familiar roles. Unfortunately, Ken Foree is just a supporting character that gets offed, but at least his death scene is spectacular. 

This movie focuses on a creation known as the Resonator and the concept of expanding the pineal gland. I admit I'm not much of an expert at glands, but this movie tells us that the pineal gland is important and expanding it could cause us to read minds and shit like that. Not sure how much stock I'd put in that, but people much smarter than me can tangle with that. 

Jeffery Combs plays Crawford Tillinghast, a man who spends time perfecting the Resonator with a creepy old guy named Edward Pretorius (Ted Sorel). However, when the machine begins functioning creatures start appearing and one of the creatures devours the head of Pretorius. Tillinghast is the only survivor of the incident, but he is in the crazy house (or it "nut house" more PC?) because of his assurances that creatures really came out of nowhere and ate his scientist buddy's head. 

Enter Dr. Katherine McMichaels (or Herbert West in female form). The good doctor (Barbara Crampton) decides that maybe Tillinghast isn't crazy and the two of the them go back to the scene of the crime accompanied by Ken Foree in order to do experiments. 

Unfortunately, they discover that Edward Pretorius is now one of those creatures that appear when the Resonator is on and he seems to want to stick around. Only this time he has a penis protruding from his forehead. Or something like that. Tentacle might be the more accurate term, but it's creepy either way. 

Things only get weirder and bloodier from there. 

By the end of it all you'll be saying, "Ew." There's blood, goo, tentacles, and just all kinds of awesome shit. I love movies like this. This movie isn't very humorous, but that works for this movie. Sometimes it is over the top (often, really), but it is definitely a darker work content-wise than its spiritual predecessor Re-Animator. 

I'll be watching this one again.