From Beyond (1986)

A follow up to Stuart Gordon and Brian Yuzna's first H P Lovecraft inspired movie, Re-Animator (1985), From Beyond (1986) similarly takes its source story as a framework, expanding upon it to produce an over-the-top piece of body horror.  The film's opening scenario isn't that far from the original story, featuring a pair of scientists developing a 'resonator', whose vibrations allow them to see and interact with other dimensions, with one of them seeing translucent creatures swimming in the air.  Inevitably, the senior scientist turns up the power, becoming entranced with the inter-dimensional experience before the device malfunctions, with the other scientist fleeing the old house where they are conducting their experiments.  When the police are called, they find the senior scientist decapitated and his colleague is arrested for his murder.  His story of inter-dimensional creatures ensures that he end up in a secure psychiatric unit.  From there, the script goes off on its own track, with a doctor treating the scientist finding that his pineal gland has been enlarged and deciding that his story is true.  Believing that the 'resonator' could be adapted to treat mental illnesses, she has the scientist released into her custody and along with an escorting police officer, they return to the house and start experimenting with the 'resonator'.  

Once it is reactivated, the first scientist, of course, crosses back into this dimension, telling the others of an alternative dimension where his particular pleasures can be fully experienced.  Which is bad news, as his particular pleasure was S&M.  The rest of the film chronicles the battle between him and the others as they try to turn off the 'resonator' and banish him back to the other dimension and he tries to take control of the device and ensare them in his fantasies.  In the course of this, he demonstrates his new shape-shifting abilities, transforming into a series of oozing, tentacled manifestations.  Various other inter-dimensional creatures hamper the heroes and the lady doctor starts succumbing to the vibrations and starts turning into a dominatrix.  The various transformations are, obviously, the film's highlight and are handled extremely well, with the prosthetic effects still quite convincing, despite their age.  Which brings us to one of the complaints against the film:  that its sexual content makes it highly un-Lovecraftian.  In truth, though, Lovecrafy's fiction is just chock full of waving phallic tentacles and oozing slime, which could, quite easily, be argued to be expressions of his own repressed sexuality and that From Beyond is merely expanding upon and exploring these ideas in a graphic fashion.  Now, while, as far as I'm aware, there is no evidence that Lovecraft was secretly into bondage, the S&M obsessions of the transformed scientist emphasise the theme of a sexuality that is normally repressed and kept secret in the everyday world, but that can be unleashed via a transformation into a different, secret, world.  As such, it could be argued, the transformed scientist acts as a proxy for Lovecraft himself.  

Interestingly, this character, created by the screen writers usurps the place of the story's main antagonist who is instead relegated to being the film's other scientist, who mostly resists the temptations of the 'resonator' and its vibrations.  Indeed, when he is finally overcome by the urges it awakens in him, causing him to molest the doctor and try to eat her brain, his enlarged pineal gland pops out through his forehead, like some kind of mutant penis.  He only releases her and comes back to his senses when she bites it off.  Perhaps this, also, could be read as a dramatisation of Lovecraft's fears as to the consequences if he ever allowed his repressed sexual urges to be released.  However you choose to read these aspects of the film, the fact is that From Beyond comes over as deeply 'Lovecraftian', from its creepy old house setting, preoccupation with madness, strange bodily transformations to its conjuring up of eldritch, unspeakable horrors from beyond this world.  It might not be as gory as Re-Animator, but like that film, it does a pretty decent job of fully fleshing out a relatively minor work in Lovecraft's canon which sits outside of the 'Cthulu Mythos' cycle he is best known for, into a full-blown story.

Despite its low budget, From Beyond is a good looking film, with excellent production values and visual style - all helped by being shot in an Italian studio.  Stuart Gordon's direction hits the mark, keeping the film well paced, building plenty of tension and contrasting the sleek modernity of the psychiatric hospital with the scientists' lab in the old house, which evokes echoes of the sort of set-up you might encounter in a Universal B horror from the forties.  The special effects, as noted, are surprisingly good bearing in mind the film's age and budget.  The cast are also strong, pitching their performances at exactly the right level for the material: taking it just seriously enough to be convincing while never straying into outright parody.  Ted Sorel is great as the transformed scientist, by turns imperialistic, sleazy and downright crazy, while Jeffrey Coombes is suitably twitchy and disturbed and his colleague.  Barbara Crampton as the doctor and Ken Foree as the cop also contribute strong performances.  All-in-all, From Beyond remains a tremendously enjoyable and exhilarating horror movie, which never seems to drag and has just enough black humour to stop all of the horrendous body transformations from becoming completely repulsive.  My enjoyment of it was greatly enhanced by watching an old VHS rip of it, complete with previews of forthcoming Vestron releases and lots of fuzz and tracking adjustments - it really took me back to the halcyon days of watching illicit videos!