10 Monster Movies That Totally Screw With Your Brain
4. From Beyond (1986)
The second of two Stuart Gordon flicks in this article, From Beyond is also based on an H.P. Lovecraft story, albeit this time far more loosely.
Doctors Edward Pretorius and Crawford Tillinghast (amazing names!) are experimenting with the stimulation of the brain’s pineal gland with a device of their creation called the Resonator. What they don’t anticipate is that their newfound ability to see beyond the normal limits of our reality goes both ways. The weird creatures floating in the air all around them can now see them, too…
Pretorius is killed, and what’s left of him is dragged Beyond, while Tillinghast is accused of his murder. Returning to the scene, the doctor reactivates the Resonator, causing Pretorius to return, deformed and monstrous, now become more like the creatures from Beyond than the human being he was. He speaks of a realm of abnormal pleasures… pleasures with a price…
If all this sounds a little familiar, it’s because - sci-fi trappings aside - this is essentially the plot and thematic underpinning of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser. Not quite as macabre as Barker’s seminal debut, From Beyond goes far further with the creature feature theatrics.
Put simply, the prosthetics here are gobsmackingly creative and bloodcurdlingly abominable. These things from Beyond aren’t the extreme BDSM fantasies of Hellraiser, but distended, demonic creatures of limitless appetite: sentient cancers intent on metastatising in this reality.
Also, genre mainstay and twitchy genius Jeffrey Combs plays Tillinghast, and he’s bloody amazing. As tongue-in-cheek and amiably revolting as it is, I love From Beyond like it was my own unholy offspring.