From Beyond, for all its fantastic source material, is really nothing more than a tiresome Hellbound Heart rip off. When the spooky scientist who has crossed into the other dimension keeps appearing in ever more deformed shapes, I couldn't help yawning. You're supposed to be frightened and horrified. You're not. He's like a party guest that won't leave.
The attempt to shoehorn sex into a Lovecraft story would have the great horror maestro turning in his grave. It's sacrilegious, and of course, not even handled well. Apparently crossing over into a transdimensional vortex doesn't just deform the body and make your forehead grow worms. It also makes you... horny. But for all those freaks out there, don't think that that means you're going to see monster-on-human sex or anything like that, just a stupid scene where the scientist-creature rips off a girl's top. This is "explained" by a laughable scene where the heroes are apparently going through the scientist's video collection and find a bondage porno. When you are working from one of the world's greatest horror writers, do you really have to try so hard to rip off a horror novel that came out the year before? You may remember that one of the things that made Barker's early fiction so transgressive and dangerous were his intimations of BDSM. In Lovecraft, well, you'd be hard pressed to find any such reference. The man was clearly not interested in love or sex and this is part of his success; the man's world was utterly scientific in its refusal to acknowledge humanity: he was the horror writer for the post-Darwinian age. In short, he'd have scoffed at this nonsense.
Look out for the scene at the beginning where the other scientist, played by Jeffrey Combs, who has been institutionalized after witnessing what happens to his colleague, is frothing at the mouth and raving about the things he saw, and actually starts shouting "why don't they believe me? Why don't they believe me?" Think about it. He has just witnessed the most incredible discovery ever made by any man in human history. As a scientist, he should know this, so why would he expect ANYONE to believe him? He is either actually crazy, and therefore it is a good thing he is locked up, or a total moron. The movie doesn't want us to believe either, yet it provides us this evidence to the contrary.
All up, this is a very stupid and crass movie, the equivalent of using the master of horror's work as toilet paper.
The attempt to shoehorn sex into a Lovecraft story would have the great horror maestro turning in his grave. It's sacrilegious, and of course, not even handled well. Apparently crossing over into a transdimensional vortex doesn't just deform the body and make your forehead grow worms. It also makes you... horny. But for all those freaks out there, don't think that that means you're going to see monster-on-human sex or anything like that, just a stupid scene where the scientist-creature rips off a girl's top. This is "explained" by a laughable scene where the heroes are apparently going through the scientist's video collection and find a bondage porno. When you are working from one of the world's greatest horror writers, do you really have to try so hard to rip off a horror novel that came out the year before? You may remember that one of the things that made Barker's early fiction so transgressive and dangerous were his intimations of BDSM. In Lovecraft, well, you'd be hard pressed to find any such reference. The man was clearly not interested in love or sex and this is part of his success; the man's world was utterly scientific in its refusal to acknowledge humanity: he was the horror writer for the post-Darwinian age. In short, he'd have scoffed at this nonsense.
Look out for the scene at the beginning where the other scientist, played by Jeffrey Combs, who has been institutionalized after witnessing what happens to his colleague, is frothing at the mouth and raving about the things he saw, and actually starts shouting "why don't they believe me? Why don't they believe me?" Think about it. He has just witnessed the most incredible discovery ever made by any man in human history. As a scientist, he should know this, so why would he expect ANYONE to believe him? He is either actually crazy, and therefore it is a good thing he is locked up, or a total moron. The movie doesn't want us to believe either, yet it provides us this evidence to the contrary.
All up, this is a very stupid and crass movie, the equivalent of using the master of horror's work as toilet paper.