From Beyond (H.P. Lovecraft/MGM DVD)
Picture:
B- Sound: B-
Extras: B Film: B
Sex.
Talk about an alien concept!
Plainly
put, H. P. Lovecraft found sex repulsive. Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi
makes an irrefutable case concerning this in his seminal work, Lovecraft: a Life. As with many of
his great master's traits, Lovecraft took Edgar Poe's proclivity toward
the life of the mind to extremes; Poe, at best, might be characterized as a
tragic romantic, but Lovecraft and romance did not share the same
universe, alien or otherwise.
H. P.
Lovecraft's From Beyond, brought to
the screen by renowned horror director and Lovecraft aficionado,
Stuart Gordon, takes his signature over-the-top style into what might best
be described as Clive Barker territory. The irony resonates here:
Lovecraft influencing Barker influencing Lovecraft, so to speak.
The story is a simple one. A brilliant if deranged scientist, Dr.
Edward Pretorius (a tip of the hat to Bride
of Frankenstein), is killed in an experiment with his invention the
Resonator and his assistant, Crawford Tillinghurst, (Jeffrey Coombs), is
locked up in an insane asylum charged with murder. The Resonator opens a
portal to another dimension by stimulating the pineal gland, generating visions
of otherworldly beings and a hyper stimulated sex drive.
Enter Dr.
Katherine McMichaels (Barbara Crampton of Re-Animator
fame or, perhaps, infamy, reviewed elsewhere on this site), a psychologist, who
becomes fascinated with Tillinghurst's seemingly insane story of an opening to
another dimension. As with Pretorius before her, this fascination
with the Resonator takes a decidedly unhealthy turn and the horror starts all
over again.
And what
is that horror, might you ask? From
Beyond retains the simple Faustian theme of Lovecraft's story;
the pursuit for knowledge and power that ultimately consumes the
pursuer. Fair enough. The Resonator, it seems, stimulates
the pineal gland, which is vaguely connected to the Third Eye, the sixth
sense, and, in the film, directly jacked into the sex drive.
Pretorius conveniently had a taste for the kinkier side of sex, most
specifically s/m, and so we are off to the races. As well
as sharing a few alphabetic characters with its cousin in southern
regions, the pineal grows remarkably under the Resonator's influence, with
its stalk eventually piercing the sheath-like skull. Never mind the
erroneous anatomy; it is similar enough for horror fans to recall the
penile-like protrusion from the otherwise attractive armpit of Marilyn Chambers
in David Cronenberg's Rabid.
Gordon knows his genre.
Despite
(or maybe because of) being the antithesis of Lovecraft's life and oeuvre,
the disturbing sexuality intrigues beyond the base puerile intent of
appealing to horror's usual demographic. There is an intellectualization
of the sexual in this film that serves as a type of analog to the original
story’s' theme, a sort of inverse repression. In the sophisticated
subtext here the brain becomes the ultimate sexual organ, for it is in fact the
seat of passion. As such, to fully
possess another brain must be, er, consumed.
Cue up
the gore.
All plays
out as expected. Coombs is very good, as usual, in his twitchy,
neurasthenic way. Ken Foree gives the hyperkinetic doings some nice
balance in a supporting role. Ted Sorel as Pretorius is the definition of
Grand Guignol and Barbara Crampton has perhaps the most frightening scene
of all in the film; don't hit the button as you sense the closing credits
coming but watch closely as her hysterical fear transforms into insane,
cackling laughter in a truly chilling final moment. It is a close-up
for the ages, at least in the horror genre.
The
Director's Featurette bonus is an extra worth the viewing time. As
in his interview accompanying Dreams of the Witch-House (2005,
part of "The Masters of Horror"
TV anthology series, reviewed often on this site), Gordon comes off as a kindly
gentleman or even an unassuming Buddhist practitioner, soft spoken, calm and
mannered. He gives a history of the
production and its relation to Re-Animator, speaks a bit of his background in
theater and how he ended up behind the camera. His general take on the horror genre and its
relation to current political climates is insightful.
A second
featurette, Lost and Found, details the cutting of the film to achieve the
original R rating, the loss for many years of the removed footage and its
recovery. Most of what is restored is a matter of
extended shots and an extra brain or three being sucked out via eye sockets or
gnawed on, accomplishing little more than bringing the film closer to its
distant Re-Animator
cousin. There is also an interesting interview with music composer
Richard Band and the usual photo montages and storyboards are provided.
The bar
for Lovecraft adaptations has been set with Andrew Leman's The Call of Cthulhu (2005) and Gordon's own Dreams of the Witch-House
(2005), previously mentioned. From Beyond is fairly standard fare, with a
twist, certainly superior to producer Brian Yuzma's Spanish productions of
recent years. Both Gordon and Yuzma have been linked to yet another
Re-Animator sequel, House of Re-Animator (2008),
with the following tagline: "When there's a death in the White House,
"re-animator" Herbert West is brought in to bring the corpse back to
life." One wonders if there will ever again be hope for the damned.
Then
again, with Coombs reprising his role as West, William Macy signed on as the
President (can Macy’s zombie president over-the-top Robert Loggia’s Mafia
vampire in John Landis’ 1992 film Innocent
Blood?) and Barbara Crampton as the First Lady, damn the hope, roll up
the carpets, push the furniture to the walls, and bring on the hypos of green
goop - it's party time!
- Don Wentworth
