From Beyond... Pineal Envy

From Beyond: 6 out of 10: All the ingredients are here for a kick ass movie. First of You have Stuart Gordon director of the superlative Re-Animator and Dagon. In addition From Beyond is also a HP Lovecraft adaptation.

Moreover, there is the cast... Jeffrey Combs is a Lovecraft movie staple and a fine actor. Scream Queen Barbara Crampton famous for the greatest receiving head scene in cinematic history (Re-Animator again and the head in question was decapitated and alive) and is tied with Michelle Johnson as the quintessential blonde sex symbol of the eighties.

Heck the movie even has Dawn of the Dead hero the always-watchable Ken Foree.

There is nudity, bondage, brain eating, slime and silly monsters.

It simply does not gel as a movie.

Pacing and the script seem to be the enemy of the good here. For a movie with so many gladdening elements, it can be a true slog. From Beyond seems to drag just when the getting is well getting good.

The monsters are neither terribly scary nor funny they are just slimy puppets of various sizes. There is no sense of fun in the film and it certainly does not get one involved enough to care about the characters fates.

Barbara Crampton spends too much time in large oversized glasses and a tight bun in her hair and buy the time she lets her hair down (and her bondage gear on) Jeffery Combs is bald, naked and making guttural sounds.

As for the story... well I have seen the film twice and I have still no real idea what is going on. (Something to do with monsters from another dimension and the pineal gland) From Beyond is certainly worth a watch for fans of Gordon, Lovecraft or Crampton but I cannot help feel that this was a colossal missed opportunity.



Barbara Crampton gets violated (and topless) by a slimy (and Undead) Ted Sorel



This is called somnophilia where someone (This case Barbara Crampton in bondage gear) has sex with an unconcious person (A bald Jeffery Combs)


Dr. Frued Line 2... Paging Dr. Frued.


Those glasses do nothing for her.


Ken Foree joins Barbara Crampton and Jeffery Combs facing a slimy (in more ways than one) Ted Sorel


































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Dagon...Fried Fish with a dollop of H.P. Sauce

Dagon: 9 out of 10: Early on in his novella Mountains of Madness; H.P. Lovecraft paints the following picture "On and around that laboratory table were strown (sic) other things, and it did not take long for us to guess that those things were the carefully though oddly and inexpertly dissected parts of one man and one dog".



I bring this quote up because so many who are casually equated with the Lovecraftian genre naturally assume he wouldn't approve of the sex and violence portrayed in modern film versions of his work. He of course had to work within the mores of the day as he sought to get his works published in magazines often marketed to and read by children. Graphic sex and violence was no more acceptable in the popular fiction of the 1920's and 30's than it was in the movies of the same time period. Lovecraft however often pushed the boundaries of his time and though Victorian by both birth and nature he creatively expanded what was acceptable in pulp fiction.



Dagon is a movie filled with nudity and very graphic violence. It is also simply the best Lovecraft adaptation I have ever seen. A combination of the title work and "The Shadow over Innsmouth", Dagon creates a phenomenal atmosphere and doesn't let up. The tension is palatable for almost the entire running time till the grand finale (which I'll admit was a little to much Lair of the White Worm for my tastes).



The make up and special effects are wonderful (with the exception one bad CGI effect at the climax). The actors (at least the ones that are intelligible) do a fine job. It is however he incredible foreboding atmosphere that propels the movie along.





Filming on a low budget director Stuart Gordon found a remarkable real life city that didn't need a lot of dressing up to be a frighting Lovecraft location. Add in a cast of strange "creatures" (and a few even stranger locals) and you simply have a winner. If you are unfamiliar with the Lovecraftian canon this is a great B movie. If you love his books however this is pure bliss.












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Raquel Merono and Macarena Gómez and some crazy bondage and some awful CGI in Dagon.



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