1986
Directed by: Stuart Gordon
Written by: Stuart Gordon (story by H.G. Wells)
Produced by: Brian Yuzna
Studio: Empire Pictures
Running time: 85 minutes

Starring:
Jeffrey Combs .... Crawford Tillinghast
Barbara Crampton .... Dr. Katherine McMichaels
Ken Foree .... Leroy 'Bubba' Brown
Ted Sorel .... Dr. Edward Pretorius
Carolyn Purdy-Gordon .... Dr. Bloch
Bunny Summers .... Neighbor Lady
Bruce McGuire .... Jordan Fields
Del Russel .... Ambulance Driver
Dale Wyatt .... Paramedic
Karen Christenfeld .... Nurse
Andy Miller .... Patient in Strait Jacket
John Leamer .... Shock Technician
Regina Bleesz .... Bondage Girl

This is one of the stranger and gorier movies to come out of the 80's. After the success of Re-Animator, Stuart Gordon, Brian Yuzna, Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton teamed together again to make another movie based on an H.G. Wells short story, From Beyond.

A big difference between this movie and Re-Animator is the lack of intentional humor. This movie is serious, gory, and left me slightly unsettled after watching it recently for the third time.

The basic story is that Dr. Edward Pretorius (Ted Sorel) and his assistant, Crawford Tillinghast, (Jeffrey Combs) have invented a machine, the "Resonator", that stimulates a gland in the brain that produces pleasure. It also just happens to open a gateway to another dimension that has eel like creatures swimming through it along with other horrible creatures. Dr. Pretorius has disappeared and presumed dead from the gore left behind at the scene in the lab. Tillinghast is in a mental ward and being accused of the crime, but an ambitious and beautiful psychologist, Dr. Katherine McMichaels (Barbara Crampton), talks the detective on the case, "Leroy Bubba Brown" (Ken Foree), into releasing Tillingham into her custody to go back to the house where the laboratory is located. This is done over the great objections of the psychologist in charge of Tillinghast (Carolyn Purdy-Gordon).

So Dr. McMichaels, Tillinghast and Bubba go to the large and creepy house in the middle of nowhere to try and duplicate the experiment that Tillinghast claims took the life of Dr. Pretorius. They soon have the Resonator up and running and Dr. Pretorius makes an appearance with a grossly altered body. When he was still a normal human Tillnghast confesses, Dr. Pretorius would bring women to the house for sex and tie them up and make them scream. Dr. McMichaels starts becoming attracted to the newly deformed Dr. Pretorius and she definitely has gotten his attention. Before things get out of hand and the flying eels tear them apart and Dr. Pretorius makes Dr. McMichaels his new sex toy in the 4th dimension, Bubba manages to pull the plug on the resonator and shut everything down.

Later that evening Dr. McMichaels starts trying on a leather outfit left behind at the house and becomes extremely aroused. She goes to Tillinghast and they are going to shack up when Bubba bursts in the room telling them that the power cable to the resonator have reconnected and it has started up again.

Down in the basement which is now filled with water and a giant sea monster, Tillinghast is trying to cut the power but ends up being sucked in the mouth of the sea creature. Bubba manages to get him out but Tillinghast has now lost all of his hair and is nearly in a coma. They manage to leave and get Tillinghast back to the hospital he was released from.

The next morning Tillinghast is a physical and mental mess and Dr. McMichaels is discredited, distrusted and facing legal charges. She is also about to get locked up and given shock treatment by the evil psychiatrist running the mental ward. But before this can happen, Tillinghast escapes and is now having a worm-like creature pop out of the middle of his forehead and he has a violent urge to eat human brains. As he makes his way through the hospital he runs into the evil doctor and chews through her head ending the possibility of Dr. McMichaels getting shock treatment.

I will leave it at that as to not spoil the ending, but this movie is a doozy as far as special effects of morphed flesh, guts and blood go. As I stated earlier this is not a comedy. It sounds very much like Re-Animator and Bride of Re-Animator, but Jeffrey Combs plays it straight throughout the film. The only release in the tension comes from Ken Foree's character Bubba, but the scenes where he makes goofy lines are just part of the character.

Ted Sorel does an excellent job as a lecherous psycho/monster and Barbara Crampton is again great just as she was in Re-Animator.

This movie is out on VHS but has not been released in the US on DVD. I managed to get a Chinese import NTSC R0 dvd on ebay, but the disk has absolutely nothing on it except the film. There are not even chapter stops on it. It is also full frame and the picture and sound quality are not the greatest, but it is a very entertaining movie. There are no current plans at the moment for a US dvd release.