H.P. Lovecraft's From Beyond: Unrated Director's Cut DVD Review

Buy This DVD Now By Clicking On The Icon Below!

Title: H.P. Lovecraft’s From Beyond: Unrated Director’s Cut

Region: One

Genre: Sci-fi Horror

Stars: Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Ken Foree, Ted Sorel, and Carolyn Purdy-Gordon

Writer: Dennis Paoli

Adapted From H.P. Lovecraft’s “From Beyond” By Brian Yuzna, Dennis Paoli, and Stuart Gordon

Director: Stuart Gordon

Feature length: 86 minutes

Extras: Audio Commentary With Director Stuart Gordon And Cast, The Director’s Perspective Featurette, The Editing Room: Lost And Found Featurette, Interview With The Composer Featurette, Photo Montage, Storyboard To Film Comparisons With Introduction

Languages: English Dolby Surround 4.0 Sound and French Mono Sound

Subtitles: English Closed Captions and Subtitles For The Deaf And Hearing Impaired and Spanish Language Subtitles

Packaging: Amaray Keep Case

Chapter Stops: 20

Sound: Dolby Surround 4.0 Sound and Mono Sound

Year of Theatrical Release: 1986/DVD Release: 2007

Theatrical Distributor: Empire Pictures

Home Video Distributor: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Home Entertainment Through Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment

MPAA Rating: Not Rated

Reviewer: Mark A. Rivera

For more than ten years, genre film fans have been requesting H.P. Lovecraft’s From Beyond on DVD and now finally for the first time ever, From Beyond is available in an Unrated Director’s Cut DVD courtesy of Metro-Goldwyn Mayer Home Entertainment and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. After the success of H.P. Lovecraft’s Re-Animator, Director Stuart Gordon was given the opportunity to adapt another of Lovecraft’s stories for the big screen. Gordon wanted to direct Dagon, but it was felt at the time that a film about a remote town where the inhabitants are slowly evolving into fish like creatures was too absurd. So Gordon was given the choice of either directing Lovecraft’s Dreams In The Witch House or From Beyond. Eventually Gordon would direct adaptations of both Dagon and Dreams In The Witch House. Dagon was released on DVD in 2001 and Dreams In The Witch House aired as an episode of Masters Of Horror on Showtime in 2005 and is also available on DVD from Starz Entertainment. The problem with adapting From Beyond was partially in the fact that the story is only a few pages long and Gordon basically used up those pages in the pre-credit opening sequence. From there Gordon had to extend the story, change a few characters around, and then when it was all said and done, he had problems with the MPAA, which forced him to cut key scenes related to gore and sex, but thematically were important to the story.

More than twenty years later, computer restoration on recently found work print material was digitally cleaned as well as matched up for a new high definition transfer that I believe aired on the HD satellite network Monsters and is now made available on DVD. The restoration on the scenes is impressive. I could not tell where they were inserted into the film. If sales of this DVD prove to be profitable I hope MGM and Fox will release a true high definition disc presentation on Blu-ray Disc. If H.P. Lovecraft’s From Beyond were produced today, it would benefit greatly from advances in makeup and computer generated effects. Sadly the effects, which were achieved with the assistance of Greg Nictotero, are dated, but for nostalgic fans, it is refreshing to see some traditional effects that I assure you seemed quite real when the film played on the big screen back in 1986.

The story is quite interesting though I think the film could have been more profound had the graphic gore and sadomasochistic sex suggested had been played down and the science of the story was beefed up a bit. Experimenting with creating new vibratory fields of energy called the resonator by using tuning forks and spectrums of light the human eye normally cannot see results in the opening of a kind of parallel universe that can be experienced through the stimulation of the pineal gland or “third eye” in the brain that is light sensitive, has an effect on the sex drive, and is believed to be the gateway toward unlocking a sixth sense. The creatures that exist in this world are around us all the time, but we never are aware of them and they are never aware of us because we exist as matter vibrating at different frequencies and in different light spectrums. Thus they pass through us and we pass through them the same way we pass through the air we breathe. However when the resonator is activated, the field creates an area where we can see the creatures and they can see us, provided we move since many appear to use different sensory organs other than eyes, as we understand them. The creatures of this world are predatory and will attack anything living from our world through being drawn by sources of light and motion. When the resonator is on, they can’t pass through us and we can’t pass through them and thus the mutual awareness attracts a Shoggoth, a vile creature that gains sentience and understanding by ingesting the brain of the victim. This binds the consciousness of the prey to the predator so that they act as one being. However it is not entirely clear ever in the film whether the Shoggoth is using the mind of the Doctor it attacks and eats to communicate and lure the others into a trap or whether it is the Doctor who has gained control of the shape shifting entity. They both may be in a constant state of flux, which could explain some of the action that occurs near the end of the film or they could be working together as one up until a certain point. I tend to think they creature and the mind of the victim is working as one entity in the film, but at the same time still experiences a state of flux as the victim serving as a sort of parasite like explorer gradually loses his humanity and the nature of the creature itself changes. Thus the union changes both species ultimately.

Much of the behind-the-scenes information I have detailed above is actually based on a feature length audio commentary featuring Director Stuart Gordon, Producer Brian Yuzna and Actors Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton. The commentary is both humorous and extremely informative. The Shaggoth is a creature from Lovecraft’s In The Mountains Of Madness that Gordon transplanted into From Beyond though the name of the creature is never given in the film. Barbara Crampton dressed in fetish costuming appeared in a Playboy spread with various monsters, including possibly some from the film before From Beyond was released theatrically.

The audio commentary track is supported with 16 by 9 enhanced featurettes detailing Stuart Gordon’s reflection on the film over twenty years later (9:50), a demonstration of the restoration of From Beyond (4:45), an interview with the film’s score Composer (4:33), a photo montage (4:43) and Storyboard to completed scene comparisons with an angle switching feature allowing one to examine only the storyboards themselves while the audio from the film plays and one can at will switch back and forth between the boards and comparison windows for scenes detailed as “Appearance Of Doctor Pretorius” (1:33), “Death Of Bubba” (2:25), “Hospital Escape” (3:07) and “Katherine Frees Herself” (1:18). There is also an introduction with Stuart Gordon (1:23).

Presented in a (1.85:1) aspect ratio that is enhanced for widescreen TVs, From Beyond looks terrific on DVD and while the back of the keep case packaging states differently, there is actually a Dolby Surround 4.0 mix that can be artificially changed to a Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound mix depending upon one’s receiver and there’s also a French Language Dubbed Mono mix too. English Closed Captions and Subtitles for the Deaf and Hearing Impaired and Spanish Language Subtitles are encoded as options for this DVD release too. The menus are standard interactive still frames that are easy to navigate.

H.P. Lovecraft’s From Beyond: Unrated Director’s Cut is a must own addition to any fans’ movie library and is available now on DVD-Video at retailers on and offline courtesy of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Home Entertainment through Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Return To The Previous Page

Buy This DVD Now By Clicking On The Icon Below!