From Beyond (1986)

Starring: Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, 
Ken Foree, Ted Sorel

Directed by: Stuart Gordon

Written by: Stuart Gordon, Dennis Paoli, 
Brian Yuzna  

Duration: 1hr 26 mins

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

From Beyond can be described in one succinct sentence: Hellraiser meets Altered States, directed by David Cronenberg.  Now, if someone pitched that to me I would fight through all the elements to secure myself a copy as soon as possible, and of course the actual movie could never hope to be the sum of such a promising set of parts.  But whilst it doesn’t achieve the perversity of Clive Barker, the grand operatics of Ken Loach or the imagination of Toronto’s finest, there’s enough fun to be had in Stuart Gordon’s sophomore effort for it to be well worth spending an an hour and a half of your life on.

COMBS IS IN FOR A LONG NIGHT

Jeffery Combs plays Dr Crawford Tillinghast in typical Jeffery Combs style: like an outcast from a Hammer horror film, all wide-eyed terror and dramatic outbursts.  He is Igor to Dr. Pretourius, Ted Sorel’s gleefully mugging mad scientist who is obsessively working in the attic on a device to stimulate the brain’s pineal gland, sharpening the sixth sense and allowing access to a parallel universe.  Just like Frank in Hellraiser, Pretourius is a sexual deviant seeking pleasures beyond what our world can offer and, also like Frank, he ends up trapped in another realm.

The plot concerns Tillinghast, psychologist Barbara Crampton (like Combs a star of Gordan’s Re-Animator and whose character arc involves spectacularly going from buttoned up academic to sex-crazed S&M vixen) and cop Ken Foree investigating exactly what went down in the suitably creepy mansion.  Within no time they’re turning on Pretourius’ troublesome ‘resonator’ again and conjuring up all kinds of other-worldly nastiness, not least the return of Pretouris himself, who becomes increasingly deformed and deranged as the movie goes on.

IT ISN'T A SPOILER TO SAY THAT THINGS DO NOT END
WELL FOR EVERY PERSON PICTURED HERE

Tillinghast doesn’t get away scot-free either.  When his head can no longer house his over-developed pineal gland, it bursts out Marlyn Chambers in Rabid-style, sucking a nurse’s eyeball clean out the socket in one particularly memorable scene.

"HUMANS ARE SUCH EASY PREY!"

Based on a H.P. Lovecraft story, From Beyond never really delivers fully on its potential for monster mayhem, a few flying worms, a beast in the cellar and a mutilated Pretourius hissing "Humans are such easy prey!" being all we get.  But it’s never anything less than a good time, and a worthy follow up to Gordon’s better known debut.  ***1/2