From Beyond (1986)

Dr. Edward Pretorius : "The greatest sensual pleasure there is is to know the desires of another mind."

By Stuart Gordon
With Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton and Ken Foree

I was browsing IMDb and I went to the page about Body Horror, a genre of horror that deals with deformation of the human body, famously exploited by David Cronenberg in most of his 80's movies. It also featured the renowned director of body horror, Stuart Gordon. I saw his film Re-Animator (1985) and since it was pretty fun so I decided to watch From Beyond.

The movie starts with Crawford Tillinghast running a computer program to run a machine that we later discover is meant to stimulate the pineal gland in order to allow the human to go beyond the five senses. The machine turns on at one fourth of its power and Crawford sees fish-like pink monsters floating in the air but he soon gets bitten by one. He runs to his professor, the doctor Edward Pretorius, but Pretorius doesn't want to experience only a portion of the machine's capabilities and runs it to its full power. Things go wrong and Edward Pretorius ends up dead and Crawford being the only one on the scene is put in a mental hospital as he keeps repeating the phrase "it devoured his head". Dr. Katherine McMichaels, a young psychiatrist who doesn't believe in locking up schizophrenics believes Crawford and with the help of police officer Bubba Brownlee, the three of them go to the house to try to run the experiment again.

The similarities with Re-Animator are legion. Not only was From Beyond was made quickly after Re-Animator, but they both share the same director, both are based on stories by H.P. Lovecraft and they both feature the two same main actors. We find Jeffrey Combs in the role of a crazy scientist once again and his overacting suits, the cold-blooded, scientific ambition driven character perfectly. However, I think Re-Animator was superior, not only in its story but in its dialogues as well. I remember many quotes from it as being cult--From Beyond somewhat lacked those.

I was also not that convinced with the saturated pink tones which were left unexplained. The graphic gore is top notch, though it is almost too much and borders onto the absurd at times (this is where I think most viewers would think it is absurd a lot of the time, I still think this is a good example of 80's horror pushed to a limit).

I think the main flaw lies in the scientifically legitimate aspect. Where the goal was simple in Re-Animator, ----create a living body out of body parts-- here we are lost in a maze of rationale about the pineal gland, the senses, death and schizophrenia. The after taste is confusing.

I liked: Crazy scientist. From beyond gore. Crawford's deadly kiss.

I disliked: Weak characters development. Pinkish neon colors. Suffers the comparison with Re-Animator.

60/100
I would only recommend it to the fans of old school horror or H.P. Lovecraft and those who loved Re-Animator.