From Beyond [Blu-ray]

Description

Product Description H.P. Lovecraft’s classic tale of suspense became ’a grisly amalgam of sex, shock and satire’ (Newsweek) in the hands of the creators of Re-Animator. And now, armed with shocking never-before-seen footage and special features and on Bluray for the first time, this ’ bloody good entertainment’ (Time) has evolved into one of the most gruesomely riveting film experiences of all time! The Resonator, a powerful machine that can control the sixth sense, has killed its creator and sent his associate into an insane asylum. But when a beautiful psychiatrist becomes determined to continue the experiment, she unwittingly opens the door to a hostile parallel universe... and to the deviant behavior within the human psyche. With its victims becoming creatures who feed on (and become aroused by) human brains, the Resonator is the ultimate man-made monster. And now something’s gone horribly wrong and no one can turn it off! desertcart.com Director Stuart Gordon followed his gleefully gruesome Re-Animator with From Beyond (1986), another freewheeling H.P. Lovecraft adaptation that blends classic mad scientist tropes with a hearty dose of polymorphous perversity and gallons and gallons of gore and goo. Gordon's stalwart leading man Jeffrey Combs returns to the laboratory as a research scientist working with the grandiose Dr. Pretorius (Ted Sorel) on a device that stimulates the pineal gland in order to supercharge perception. Unbeknownst to them, the machine has a few (quite literal) kinks in its design: not only does it bring the user into contact with extra-dimensional creatures with an appetite for humanity, but it also supercharges both evolution and desire, transforming Pretorius into a gelatinous, megalomaniacal libido monster while reducing Combs to a psychopath with a taste for brain matter. While From Beyond does not command the same cult following as Re-Animator--it lacks that film's coal-black humor, which tempers its explosions of morbid autopsy-room splat-shtick--it's also an outrageous experience unto itself. It more than matches its predecessor in terms of bloodshed while also conjuring a heady brew of Frankenstein references (Pretorius name-checks Ernest Thesiger's sexually ambiguous medico in Bride of Frankenstein), Cronenbergian body horror, and a quivering mass of Freudian peccadilloes, all filtered through Gordon's own avant-garde theater sensibilities and '80s-era grindhouse aesthetics. It also benefits from a remarkably game cast, led by the unfettered twin forces of Combs and Sorel and abetted by fellow Re-Animator alum Barbara Crampton, who kicks out the jams as a strait-laced psychiatrist who discovers her libertine side through their invention, and Ken Foree (the '78 Dawn of the Dead) as a brawny detective whose pro-football past proves no match for the picture's array of monsters. Scream Factory's Blu-ray presentation offers the director's cut of From Beyond along with a host of new and previously released supplemental features. Lively commentary by Gordon, Combs, Crampton, and producer Brian Yuzna has been ported over from the 2007 MGM DVD release, as have interviews with Gordon and composer Richard Band, while the new material includes a second commentary track with cowriter Dennis Paoli, who reads selections from the Lovecraft source material, as well as interviews with a very funny Combs, Crampton, and producer Charles Band. A featurette on the four special effects companies that labored on the film, as well as a gallery of production stills and advertising material and the original trailer, round out this typically top-notch Blu-ray from Scream Factory. --Paul Gaita Review: H P classic - Amazing movie great quality Review: Films like this are "such easy prey" for prudes and critics - I have a liking for both H.P. Lovecraft stories and off the wall horror films and few people do them better than Stuart Gordon. He misses the target occasionally, but you have to take his films in context. The production values are high, the direction good, and the acting, whilst not inspired, is competent and convincing. The special effects are OK for lowish budget features, and the sound, cinematography and editing are fine. What seems to annoy a lot of people is that Gordon takes Lovecraft stories as the basis for his plots, and then fabricates a modern post-Halloween type horror story rather than staying "true to the master's original story". Get over it. Lovecraft had a fantastic imagination but stylistically he was a lousy writer who never evolved beyond pulp fiction. Without him there would be no Cthulhu mythos but face it - his prose is repetitive, precious and turgid. Lovecraft also had a very conservative, post-Victorian background and wrote in an era when the silent version of "The Phantom of the Opera" was considered shocking. His stories are essentially unfilmable because it would be impossible to package his style and vision into a film that would truly horrify modern audiences. They would either laugh or be bored stiff. Rather than criticising it for not being "accurate", "From Beyond" should be compared to films such as "Hellraiser" or "From Dusk Till Dawn" - that is its true mileau. In that case, it more than holds its place as a worthy modern splatter-horror. The only films that really attempt to portray Lovecraft in an "accurate" manner are Carpenter's "In the Mouth of Madness" and the Lovecraft Society's "The Call of Cthulhu" (which is pretty good for an amateur attempt). The Carpenter film still uses a lot of gore, but it is not so gratuitous. The Lovecraft Society's film works because it is made as an imitation 1920s silent film, so the viewer accepts all its shortcomings. It would be interesting to see a Lovecraft film made by a major director with a big budget, and not done as a splatter film, but I can't see it happening in the near future. In the meantime, Gordon's films are fine entertainment - but just don't expect them to be "accurate". As for this particular release, it is very high quality and the commentary is interesting. Thank goodness it finally got to DVD.