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Wonderful character development!

Undescribable Perfection

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

I want to like From Beyond. And I guess I kind of do. This adapts the H.P. Lovecraft short story of the same name, where scientists develop a machine that stimulates the human brain in such a way that we can see beyond the borders of our own reality and witness creatures that are normally invisible to human perception.It's a creative concept and stokes the fires of one's imagination to create all kinds of nasty creatures, something that the best of H.P. Lovecraft's works are known for. The movie, unfortunately, only really manages one or two really good monsters and a lot of hot pink strip club lighting. After the main creature's initial reveal, the movie actually turns ridiculous; but never outright humorous. Just kind of... dumb. And weird. Very, very weird.That's not to say it's lacking creativity. I think the final sequence will haunt my nightmares for a while, and that's saying something. But it's hard to be too invested in these characters when they are only defined by the nonsensical actions they make while drunk on "The Resonator." After a while I felt, I dunno, kind of bored by the whole thing. The handful of creature effects are fun and the movie isn't exactly slow, it's just the plot is a little thin. It's a lot of blood and slime, screaming, and even some sex, but just not a ton of substance. So I come away from this movie a bit conflicted. I didn't hate my time with From Beyond, but it's not exactly an automatic recommendation, either. It has good actors, a couple of weird monsters, but not much else. You could do worse than that, I suppose.

It's unfortunate, but From Beyond can't help but be compared to the superior Re-Animator. Both films are directed by Stuart Gordon, star the same two leads, and are influenced by Lovecraft, so it's hard not to make comparisons. While on paper they seem similar, the movies themselves are quite different in terms of quality, unfortunately. From Beyond seemed not to try hard enough to create some type of structure to keep the story afloat, whereas Re-Animator perfectly meshed the horror/comedy genres and created some fantastic scenes with sound structure. Basically, From Beyond felt too silly and campy for its own good, you can attribute that to both the direction and the acting. The slim and ick-factor are both here, but the typical charm and enjoyment factors aren't.The overall idea is creepy in itself (unknown dimensions), but the execution of the story seemed to be lacking. The opening moments reveal the protagonist, but then the following 80 minutes nothing really comes from it. The story seemed to go absolutely nowhere, and in fact I could hardly tell you what it was trying to accomplish. And, of course, there were all those sexual undertones, where they necessary to the story, who knows? Maybe I failed to grasps the film's overall message of sexual exploration and all that, but what was given was scarce and more importantly lame.Like I said, it's hard not to compare this film to the vastly superior Re-Animator. While the special effects here are fantastic (I love the 80s gore effects), they can't save From Beyond from being dull and joyless. Not a disastrous movie but the movie doesn't even close to reaching the heights of other 80s sci-fi classics.

From Beyond, for all its fantastic source material, is really nothing more than a tiresome Hellbound Heart rip off. When the spooky scientist who has crossed into the other dimension keeps appearing in ever more deformed shapes, I couldn't help yawning. You're supposed to be frightened and horrified. You're not. He's like a party guest that won't leave.The attempt to shoehorn sex into a Lovecraft story would have the great horror maestro turning in his grave. It's sacrilegious, and of course, not even handled well. Apparently crossing over into a transdimensional vortex doesn't just deform the body and make your forehead grow worms. It also makes you... horny. But for all those freaks out there, don't think that that means you're going to see monster-on-human sex or anything like that, just a stupid scene where the scientist-creature rips off a girl's top. This is "explained" by a laughable scene where the heroes are apparently going through the scientist's video collection and find a bondage porno. When you are working from one of the world's greatest horror writers, do you really have to try so hard to rip off a horror novel that came out the year before? You may remember that one of the things that made Barker's early fiction so transgressive and dangerous were his intimations of BDSM. In Lovecraft, well, you'd be hard pressed to find any such reference. The man was clearly not interested in love or sex and this is part of his success; the man's world was utterly scientific in its refusal to acknowledge humanity: he was the horror writer for the post-Darwinian age. In short, he'd have scoffed at this nonsense.Look out for the scene at the beginning where the other scientist, played by Jeffrey Combs, who has been institutionalized after witnessing what happens to his colleague, is frothing at the mouth and raving about the things he saw, and actually starts shouting "why don't they believe me? Why don't they believe me?" Think about it. He has just witnessed the most incredible discovery ever made by any man in human history. As a scientist, he should know this, so why would he expect ANYONE to believe him? He is either actually crazy, and therefore it is a good thing he is locked up, or a total moron. The movie doesn't want us to believe either, yet it provides us this evidence to the contrary.All up, this is a very stupid and crass movie, the equivalent of using the master of horror's work as toilet paper.

I have seen this flick ages ago guess it must have been around the time it came out. I knew I liked it because the transformation did remember me a lot of one of my favorite flicks The Thing (1982). Now that it finally is out on Blu Ray it was time to watch it over again.First of all it is finally out full uncut. All is intact, the eye sucking and SM bondage stuff is there to see. Still, it's a weird flick based on a seven page story by Lovecraft. Made just after Re-animator (1985) which gave Stuart Gordon a few problems with the MPAA From Beyond was damned from the beginning. One scene was never shot thought it would never pass the MPAA. It would nowadays but back then it would not pass. It was finally never shot, it involved the bondage girls' tongue being pierced by a nail. Another thing Stuart did was murdering his wife (Carolyn Purdy-Gordon)in each flick he made. Here her eyes being sucked out to get her brains. The story itself is a rather slow and it shows on part of the flick itself. It takes a while before things go wrong. But once it does it really becomes a horror. Stuart decided not to show blood but to replace it by slime. By doing so many found it gruesome and disgusting. And the slime was teared down by the MPAA.Barbara Crampton (Dr. Katherine McMichaels) and Jeffrey Combs (Crawford Tillinghast) did return together from Re-animator. They both gave an excellent performance combined with Ken Foree's (Bubba Brownlee) acting gave this flick something to watch. Once that the sixth sense (the so- called pineal gland) was triggered this flick becomes a delight for fans of weird creatures. Still due not having any gore it's the opposite of Re-animator. So some gorehounds didn't like it and real horror buffs will be let down due the fact that it is a bit tame on that part but still the creature makes it worth watching.To be honest this is in fact the reason to watch this flick, the effects. Some are done CGI but still it works out fine. Barbara do offer a tittie here and there for the Kleenex lovers and even goes full latex. I can't say it better than this, if you like the goo from The Thing then this is surely a flick to watch.Gore 1/5 Nudity 1/5 Effects 5/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0/5