H.P. Lovecraft’s From Beyond

Based on a short story by, of course, H.P. Lovecraft, H.P. Lovecraft’s From Beyond details the chaos that ensues after two scientists (Ted Sorel’s Edward Pretorius and Jeffrey Combs’ Crawford Tillinghast) successfully open a gateway to a parallel universe in a creaky old house – with the story subsequently following Crawford as he and two others (Barbara Crampton’s Katherine McMichaels and Ken Foree’s Bubba Brownlee) attempt to close said gateway. There’s little doubt that H.P. Lovecraft’s From Beyond opens with a tremendous amount of promise, as director Stuart Gordon, working from Dennis Paoli’s screenplay, kicks the proceedings off with a fantastic (and thoroughly exciting) pre-credits sequence that immediately captures the viewer’s interest and attention and establishes an atmosphere of balls-to-the-wall insanity. From there, however, the film segues into a slow-moving and disappointingly repetitive midsection revolving almost entirely around Crawford, Katherine, and Bubba’s housebound exploits – with the episodic nature of this stretch slowly-but-surely draining H.P. Lovecraft’s From Beyond of its energy and momentum. The inclusion of several appreciatively (and disgustingly) over-the-top instances of gore ensures that the movie, at the very least, remains watchable throughout, with the just-adequate-enough atmosphere perpetuated by Gordon’s stylish visuals and the winning efforts of the various actors (eg Combs is at his off-kilter best here). But by the time the larger-than-life yet completely uninvolving finale rolls around, H.P. Lovecraft’s From Beyond has long-since established itself as a disappointing missed opportunity that never becomes the fun, fast-paced horror effort that one might’ve expected or hoped for.

** out of ****