“Humans are such…easy prey.”
The horror layman could be forgiven for mistaking From Beyond, at first glance, for a David Cronenberg film. And with a tighter focus, a more limited earth-tone color pallet, and more Spartan sets, it really could be, given its preoccupations with the mutability of the flesh (particularly through new technology, especially visual tech) and latent sexual desires unleashed by science gone awry. Videodrome might be the closest analog: the Resonator/television signals unlock our “third eyes,” this opening of new dimensions/vistas results in the adaptation of the human body, sex is intrinsically wrapped up in violent impulses (From Beyond’s antagonist, Dr. Pretorius, has a BDSM room beamed straight from Videodrome itself). But really, I’m grossly over-intellectualizing this film. Made by the same creative team that brought us Re-Animator (which was the single greatest horror comedy until Shaun of the Dead), From Beyond finds them tackling another H.P. Lovecraft short tale, in which dimensions that ought not to be probed are continually provoked, despite all evident warning signs. This outing doesn’t have the manic energy of Re-Animator, nor does it attempt to go for laughs, playing it much more straight this time out. It seems to want to have things both ways, however, as many moments are obviously played for camp value – the usually understated Ken Foree is hamming it up left and right, the lurid magentas and blues of the Resonator in action highlighting the superimposed beasties, scream queen Barbara Crampton’s forays into the pleasures of the flesh, etc. The creature designs and special effects are wildly divergent and suitably repulsive, the technobabble reaches just the right amount of incomprehensibility, and like any good H.P. Lovecraft tale, it wraps up with (spoiler alert!) everyone either dead or irretrievably mad. Watch out for interdimensional eels, y’all.
