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| Retro Review: From Beyond |
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| By Tom Berich |
 I don't know if the gland is real or not, but apparently, in this case, bigger IS better. The Pineal gland is really the center of this movie, and "From Beyond" takes little time to get into what it is about.
There is a stripped down plot here, which is a step up from most modern horror films. Tillinghast, a Doctor's assistant (played with exuberance by the faithful Re-Animator himself-Jeffrey Combs) watches an experiment go awry, which results in the decapitation and consumption of the Doctor's head. It seems the mad scientist, in an effort to prove that evil beings exist in another dimension around us, succeeds by inventing a machine that peers into that dimension. The machine, called a Resonator, we discover hyper stimulates our Pineal gland to the point which we can see these otherworldly creatures, but they see us as well. Let the bloodflow begin…
Now I refuse to get into the plot any farther, but I should mention that if the Pineal gland is stimulated enough (as in the case of Tillinghast) it grows and grows until it literally pops out of your forehead and becomes a third eye…or second penis…you gotta see it to believe the film makers got away with this.
No more plot spoilers, but there was more creativity in this movie than in really anything I've seen in the last ten years. Nicely over the top! Huge monsters, Flesh eating killer bees, Mutations, Extraordinarily phallic symbols, Toothy Slime-worms, Brain eating and some gratuitous nudity (this is after all an 80's horror flick).
This is the sophomore effort from Stuart Gordon and Brian Yuzna who previously socked us right between the eyes with "Re-Animator", and while this is still, to my eyes a classic, it doesn't have the relentless-blinders on-bizarreness of their first film. Things, unfortunately only went downhill for these guys after "From Beyond", with the slightly better than lame "Dolls" and the promising but oh so disappointing evil human/more evil fish film, "Dagon" (although the latter had a face skinning scene that stuck with me for weeks).
Horror films need the depravity of the Gordon-Yuzna early films. There is a certain genius to being able to turn your stomach and not letting up. Add to that some satire and artistry like you find in "From Beyond" and you've got a recipe for a classic.
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