#12 - From Beyond (1986)

From Beyond (1986)

(dir. Stuart Gordon)

Dr. Pretorius and his assistant Crawford Tillinghast are working on a resonator that stimulates the pineal gland, which Pretorius believes will awaken a person's "third eye" and allow them to perceive a new level of reality. Amazingly, he is successful, however this new dimension has inhabitants that can see us back, and they are not friendly. This starts a chain of events that leads to, well... it's hard to really summarize the plot without giving away the surprises. There isn't much to compare this film to - if I had to sell it, I'd describe it as a cross between Re-Animator and Hellraiser.

Based (loosely) on the Lovecraft story of the same name and directed by the incomparable Stuart Gordon, this film gets pretty goddamn crazy. There is a sequence about halfway through that is so completely bonkers that it blows away what would be the climax of any other movie, and then manages to do it again it later in the film... twice. The movie wastes no time getting to the good parts, too - within the first two minutes, we see Tillinghast (Jeffrey Combs) bitten in the face by a flying eel from another dimension, and things only get weirder from there.

Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, and Ken Foree are all considered horror icons today, thanks in no small part to this film (and for Combs and Crampton, it's predecessor Re-Animator). Combs in particular is really fantastic, and Crampton gets to show off her, uh, assets. The practical special effects are really fantastic too - this is one of the grossest, gooiest films of the '80s (think of the effects from Carpenter's The Thing or Cronenberg's The Fly).

If you enjoy this sort of over-the-top '80s horror, From Beyond is essential viewing. It's definitely one of my favorites.