From Beyond (1986)

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1. 

   dombrewer

   I've been wanting to see this Stuart Gordon/Jeffrey Combs/H.P. Lovecraft horror for many years, as an admirer of their "Re-animator" from the year before, but struggled to find the film anywhere - it's never on television and wasn't released on DVD in the UK until very recently. I finally managed to watch the unrated director's cut online. In a way it's a shame because I have a feeling if I'd seen it as a kid in the 80s on grainy VHS it would have properly blown my mind as intended. Today it seems gloriously OTT, unexpectedly kinky, disjointed, bizarre, gaudy and resolutely and proudly B-grade in every way.
   Combs plays Crawford Tillinghast, an altogether more sympathetic sort of insane scientist and different kind of monster to Herbert West, and one you continue to side with even when a blood soaked pineal gland is snaking out of his forehead and he's sucking the brains of a nurse out of her eye socket (a seriously disgusting and magnificently audacious moment). Barbara Crampton has more to do in this one than in "Re-animator", and good job too - she's a feisty leading lady, playing some extremely off-the-wall scenes truthfully while looking ridiculously hot in S&M gear. It really *is* a shame I missed this one as a kid.
   The star of the show are the special effects though - the creature designs and makeup are superb, easily standing alongside the great work of that greatest of practical effect eras - the scene where the villainous and increasingly mutating Dr. Pretorious returns from the other dimension and tears his own head in two revealing violently writhing tentacles and a fountain of slime owes a strong debt to John Carpenter's "The Thing" but is just as effectively done. Crawford's comment immediately following: "that... will be quite enough of that" is a classic, and in the similar vein to Palmer's all time great understatement in Carpenter's film.
   As great as the effects are, and outrageous as the telling of the story is, the plot is admittedly weak and as a result the film never really reaches the levels of a bona fide horror classic, but it's a mad ride and definitely deserves a place in 80s SFX history. I'm looking forward to completing the Gordon/Lovecraft set with "Castle Freak" and "Dagon". 11 years ago
2. 

   armyofshadows

   Great for the gore. The huge plot holes are also fun to notice. It is very Cronenberg, but of course Cronenberg is much, much better. 9 years 5 months ago
3. 

   jerthejerjer

   I have to be honest, this movie reminds me of a Cronenberg film ah la Videodrome or Naked Lunch. Great movie and a must see for horror fans. 12 years 5 months ago

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