From Beyond Or Why H.P. Lovecraft Stories Shouldn't Be Made Into Movies

[Trekkie313]

I watched Stuart Gordon's From Beyond after waiting at least 3 months for it on Blockbuster.com and I wish I hadn't because it was f**king terrible.
The premise is supposedly based on H.P. Lovecraft's really short story "From Beyond", but I know Lovecraft would feed the writers ass to the "old ones" for mentioning his name in this utter piece of trash.

Jeffery Combs partner is an S&M freak and "scientist" (I'll use that term loosely) who gets his head eaten by a monster in an experiment. Later he returns as "silly putty man" and tries to get Combs and some dumb blond "psychologist" to join him in "the beyond" so they can experience the ultimate sensation. AKA Third eye sex through the dormant pineal gland.
That's about all you need to know, but basically the plot is really Videodrome meets Altered States with alot of senseless gore and weird lights thrown in. The special effect suck so much even for an 80's horror movie, in fact one of the monsters looks exactly like a sandworm from "DUNE".
The character development is virtually non-existent, everyone could have been cardboard cutouts for all I care. No real background is given to the antagonist or Jeffery Combs...also Ken Foree dies yet again in a ridiculous fashion. The ending is so goddamn (forgive me Lord) insane and actually managed to make me physically ill. I s**t you not, don't see this piece of "gar-b***h" under any circumstances. See one of Jeffery Combs or Stuart Gordon's better films.
If you like dreadful acting, bald dudes and monsters made of silly putty...then you deserve to have your pineal gland ripped out.   

The only good parts about the DVD were the feature about the film restoration and this


BTW...If anyone has seen it, I'd love to discuss opinions also how was my rant?  :ka:

[BoyScoutKevin]

The rant was good, but having read H. P. Lovecraft, his vision is hard to translate into film.

But three of the earliest films--"The Haunted Palace," "The Crimson Cult," and "Die, Monster, Die"--based on his stories, I've always found enjoyable, mainly for the stars, if not for H. P. Lovecraft.

"The Haunted Palace" (1963)
w/ Vincent Price and Lon Chaney, Jr."
Based on his "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward"

"Die, Monster, Die" (1965)
w/ Boris Karloff and Nick Adams
Based on his "The Colour Out of Space"

"The Crimson Cult" (1968)
w/ Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee
Based on his "The Dreams in the Witch House," if uncredited.

Other than that, you might try . . .

"Dagon" (2001)
Based on his "Dagon" and "The Shadow on Innismouth," which alot of people like.

Probably the best adaptation will be "At the Mountains of Madness," if only because Guillermo del Toro has signed on to direct, but that won't be out until 2013 at the earliest.

There are more adaptations of his stories, which I have not seen, which you may enjoy.
Good luck!

[Andrew]

For really good films based on Lovecraft's stories or ideas, I definitely suggest "Reanimator" and "The Resurrected."  I have reviewed the latter:

http://www.badmovies.org/movies/resurrected/

I have a soft spot for "From Beyond," having watched it as a teenager.  It does get some of the elements of Lovecraft's mythos right, like individual scientists dabbling in occult or scientific areas that turn out to be dangerous to them.  There is also the fact that the setting is not some big lab, just an old house with a laboratory and some weird experiments going on.

The film does introduce a lot of sexuality that is not present in Lovecraft's writing.  However, in the movie's defense, it also tweaked that understandable human sexuality and twisted it into something quite alien.  Remember how Dr. Pretorius says "I'm going to kiss you." and then proceeds to engulf his victim's head?  Weird, disturbing - as is Jeffrey Combs' growing that third eye and sucking the one doctor's brain out through her eye.  In any case, the weird sexuality can be explained by Brian Yuzna's credit as one of the writer's.

Some of the images in the film are pretty wild, such as the transparent eel-creatures that swim through the air, along with the fully mutated Pretorius.  It's also hard for me not to enjoy seeing Barbara Crampton in a "Leather Goddesses of Phobos" outfit, becoming a complete freak in the bedroom on camera.  Granted, that could well be a result of my teenage exposure and sentimentality for the film.

The acting and direction all seems quite solid.  The part with the weird flesh-eating insects that end up munching Ken Foree has always struck me as lazy writing

[Rev. Powell]

That's about all you need to know, but basically the plot is really Videodrome meets Altered States with alot of senseless gore and weird lights thrown in.

Wow, I gotta say that sounds great!    I'm looking forward to this and I hope it meets the high standard you set in your description!