Last night, we watched "From Beyond"(1986), a movie I saw in the theater in 1986, with Dave S. and Shecky. I remember that it spawned quite a discussion, later that night at Sheck's house, on the nature of inter-dimensional beings. It's based on a story by H.P. Lovecraft, in which a Mad Scientist named "Dr. Edward Pretorius" (Ted Sorel) uses an electromagnetic resonator to connect with the ethereal world. The movie was made by the same team who brought you the cult hit "Re-Animator" a year before, director Stuart Gordon and Producer Brian Yuzna. Actor Jeffrey Combs stars in both films. I remembered "From Beyond" being weird, weird, and weird. Well, sometimes the memory of a film is better than the repeat viewing, because tonight I just thought it was gross, gross and gross. Disgusting, even. And now that I think about it, our discussion back at Shecky's house, after the movie was over, could've been more of a "silver lining" type of deal: "Yeah, well the movie sucked, but it had a fascinating premise." It's telling that I remembered the discussion more than the movie.
It starts out well enough. Combs, playing "Crawford Tillinghast", is working inside a spectacular Mad Scientist laboratory, as the assistant to the genius Dr. Pretorius (whose Latin surname adds Mad Scientist prestige). But something is wrong. Tillinghast is trying to shut off the computer that runs the lab's Resonator, which resembles a Van de Graaff generator. The Resonator sends powerful electromagnetic waves thru a series of tuning forks to create a frequency that permeates the aether. However, something has gone awry offscreen, and the next we see Crawford Tillinghast, he's running out of the old barn that houses the lab, screaming about murder, the murder of Dr. Pretorius, which he is then arrested for. Tillinghast is committed to an insane asylum run by psychiatrist "Dr. Bloch" (Carolyn Purdy-Gordon). "Dr. Katherine McMichaels" (Barbara Crampton) visits. She wants to experiment on Crawford, to run a brain scan to see if he's lucid. "If he is, there's a chance he's telling the truth." Dr. McMichaels has a rep as a hotshot shrink, trying to make a name for herself. But she gets permission from the asylum administrator (my sister's friend Bruce McGuire) to take Crawford off-grounds, and back to the scene of the murder. A big cop named "Bubba Brownlee" (Ken Foree) is assigned to go along, to protect her in case Crawford goes crazy.
Though nervous, he appears to be sane, and when they get him back to the Resonator lab, he describes what happened to Dr. Pretorius. "It came out of the aether and ate him." Crawford doesn't say what "It" is. Brownlee thinks he's nuts, until Crawford demonstrates the Resonator, at low level, and eels appear and swim around in thin air. "There! Now you've seen it with your own eyes." But then, because the frequency can also be controlled from the Other Side, by the force of human desire, the dead Pretorius turns up the volume and appears as a gruesome Gelatinous Mass.
In 1982, with the advent of John Carpenter's "The Thing", we were introduced to animatronic, gelatin-based creatures dripping with glycerin, with rope-like appendages, and the grosser the better. Many were designed to symbolize sex organs, and in this movie, that theme is emphasized because, in addition to his scientific genius, Dr. Pretorius was an S and M freak. In his Tumescent Incarnation, Pretorius makes Jabba the Hutt look like Paul Newman. And even though he was just doing his job, the actor playing him is just as repulsive. Now that he's controlling the Resonator (which Tillinghast never should've turned on) he takes one look at the hot blonde Dr. McMichaels, and decides he has to have her, the old "Desire of the Flesh" theme again - a big 1980s motif - as expounded by Clive Barker.
Because this is the 1980s, the movie turns into a Horror Porno for about 15 minutes, coming completely unglued, not to mention slow and boring. What started out with promise in a great Mad Scientist lab, loses all focus as the real, human Pretorius reappears as a sex maniac, but he's an out of shape 65 year old man, and it's just gross and disgusting. And the blonde actress - a pretty gal - is just kind of pathetic, because she's making a fool of herself, as Ken Foree's character points out. It's an '80s glossy porn sequence, filmed in lurid color.
Once the horror plot gets back on track, thanks to Foree's cop, we're off and running again on the movie's other theme: the activation of the pineal gland, the long-dormant Third Eye of the Sumerians and other ancient cultures. I think this is what begat our post-movie discussion at Shecky's because I was always interested in the concept of the Third Eye as it pertains to psychic ability, but in the movie, Crawford Tillinghast's pineal gland takes on a life of his own, and he turns into a cannibal - not a polite cannibal who cooks you first, but one who just grabs you and starts eating you. And this is where the movie becomes a total gross-out, overdoing it where movies like Texas Chainsaw or Night of the Living Dead knew that less is more.
Less is more: in special effects, in gore, etc. Because, when you drown the viewer in blood, guts, body parts, and grossly deformed gelatinous masses, and you do it with all the lights on......it's not scary.
And that's a huge problem with this movie. Though it does have its moments (not many but a few), there aren't but one or two minor scares in the whole thing. There's no suspense. It's just gross, grosser, grossest. And the bummer is that it could've been really good, in the same vein as Carpenter's "Prince of Darkness".
My verdict is fuggeddabboudit, unless you are a Gordon/Yuzna completist. In my opinion, nowdays even "Re-Animator" doesn't look that good, unless you are 24 and new to this stuff. I mean, I'll still take 1980s special effects over CGI (the most boring production value of all time), but you can't beat good old fashioned movie props made out of wood, fabric, clay, makeup, putty, etc. Things were better when they looked real. That's why 1940s horror holds up, and never looks dated. It's scary but never gross. I'm gonna be generous and give "From Beyond" Two Regular Thumbs Up, a rating we haven't used for ages. Just because it could've been good if they'd followed-up the first ten minutes. The picture is DVD quality. ////
The previous night, we had "The Man Who Laughs"(1928), a movie I've been waiting to see for a long time. I got into Silent Film about 20 years ago, mainly for the epics of Demille, and the German Expressionists like Robert Wiene, Paul Wegener, Fritz Lang, F.W Murnau. And Paul Leni, who directed "The Man Who Laughs". I developed an appreciation of Silent movies, and watched Westerns and masterpieces like "Pandora's Box", and "Sunrise", but I never saw "Man Who Laughs", because.....well, I was cheap. I didn't wanna spend the 44 dollars for a Kino DVD. 44 bucks is a lot for any movie.
But still....
that image of Conrad Veidt, with his face-splitting smile.....man, you just had to see more. Talk about an iconic make-up job. And Veidt was certainly one of the all-time great actors. When you star in "Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and "The Man Who Laughs", and then you cross over to Film Noir in the sound era, well, you've established yourself at the absolute top of the heap.
In "Laughs", Veidt plays "Gwynplaine", the son of Lord Chancharlie, a rival to "King James" (Sam deGrasse) who was killed in the King's "Iron Lady"(aka the Iron Maiden). As a child, he is orphaned and becomes the property of the Comprachicos, gypsies who steal children and perform crude surgeries on their faces to transform them into circus clowns as a source of income. Gwyn, now ten, has already had his surgery done, turning his mouth into a hideous leer, but he escapes the Comprachicos in a snowstorm as they are about to sail from England, from which they've been banished. Now, King James has an evil court jester named "Barkilphedro" (Brandon Hurst) who acts as an Iago, a manipulator. When James dies, Barkilphedro gets the ear of the Queen.
By this time, Gwyn has been rescued by a traveling playwright named "Ursus", who touts himself "like Shakespeare...but better!" When Gwyn escaped from the Comprachicos, he found a frozen woman in the snow holding a baby. Gwyn is carrying that baby when he's found by Ursus. She is Dea, born blind.
Cut to 15 years later: Gywnplaine, raised to adulthood by Ursus, in now part of his stage show, billed as "The Laughing Man", named for his surgically altered smile. Conrad Veidt had to wear hooks at the corners of his mouth to stretch it into a lurid grin, with oversized prosthetic teeth, and glycerin in his eyes for constant tears. Talk about suffering for your art! He loathes his clown's role for Ursus, but feels he owes it to this man who raised him. He's also enamored with Dea, who plays a Blind Angel in the traveling show. Dea is in love with Gwynplaine. As Ursus rescued him, he did the same for her. She touches his face, feels his everpresent smile, and loves him for his heart. Gywn, in turn, loves Dea, but worries he could lose her if she ever regained her eyesight.
The plot turns when Barkilphedro finds out, through a mysterious scroll, that Gwynplaine is the heir to a Lordship and a vast fortune. He tells the Queen, who wants Gwyn to marry her wayward daughter. Gwyn is now popular with audiences as The Man Who Laughs, but the Queen has him arrested under false pretenses to force him into the arranged marriage. Can Ursus and Dea save him?
Keep an eye out for his loyal dog "Homo." Yes, that's his name. Don't laugh. In fact, you'll need Kleenex for the ending. Two Gigantic Thumbs Up for "The Man Who Laughs", our highest rating. Movies don't get any better than this tragedy that plays like a horror film. Mary Philbin is outstanding as Dea, and the supporting cast rounds out the effort. The picture has been restored and looks good, but man would I love to see it in the theater. ////
And that's all for today. I hope your weekend is off to a good start. Do you have any Halloween party plans? If you do, have a blast. Go Rams tomorrow versus Cowboys. My blogging music (last night) was Klaus Schulze "Cyborg", my late night was Wagner Meistersinger. I promise that I will get this blog back on schedule. I send you Tons of Love, as always. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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