Editorials
Time to Revisit… ‘From Beyond’
In the second installment of my series shedding a spotlight on lesser-known genre entries in relation to their more attention-getting contemporaries, I take a look at two early-period Stuart Gordon films: the popular 1985 Lovecraft adaptation Re-Animator, and the considerably less-popular but also-excellent 1986 Lovecraft adaptation From Beyond.
Given that both films are highly successful in merging the splatter with the side-splitting, why is it that Re-Animator is held in such high regard while From Beyond has largely been relegated to “second-banana” status? Inside, you can check out my argument for why the former could stand to share a little more recognition with its redheaded step-sibling.
Beloved Favorite: Re-Animator (1985)
Number of votes on IMDB: 14,340
The Plot: A medical student gets in over his head when he begins assisting his odd-duck roommate in experiments focused on reanimating dead tissue.
Why it’s so celebrated: Still widely considered director Stuart Gordon’s greatest work to date, Re-Animator was not an enormous hit on its initial theatrical release but has developed a considerable and devoted cult following in subsequent years. It went on to spawn two sequels (neither of which the director returned for) and more recently Gordon’s extremely well-received L.A. stage adaptation Re-Animator: The Musical, which has been enjoying sold-out performances and a boatload of rave reviews since it opened. Continued fan interest in the property isn’t exactly surprising at this point; over 25 years since its debut, Re-Animator is regularly cited as one of the greatest independent horror films ever made, and one of the few that managed to successfully capture the spirit of H.P. Lovecraft’s body of work.
Why it’s time to back-burner it for awhile: Though Re-Animator is absolutely deserving of the praise it’s received over the last couple dozen years, it also seems to suck up almost all the attention from the rest of the films in Gordon’s oeuvre. This is a shame, as the director has helmed several other top-notch works of horror that also deserve recognition but nevertheless consistently reside in Re-Animator‘s shadow. It’s about time we re-focused some of that love onto one of Gordon’s other, less-celebrated genre entries for a change. In fact, I’m gonna go ahead and recommend…
Underappreciated Also-Ran: From Beyond (1986)
Number of votes on IMDB: 4,748
The Plot: Two scientists get in over their heads when they develop the “Resonator”, a machine with the power to open the gates to another dimension by stimulating the human pineal gland.
Why it’s not so celebrated: While From Beyond is one of Gordon’s better-known efforts, the amount of audience appreciation it receives still pales in comparison with that of Re-Animator. Perhaps part of the reason for this is that although the former film proved a minor success at the box-office (grossing about twice its production budget on initial release), From Beyond made back less than a third of its $4.5 million price tag theatrically. In addition, though it was generally well-received by critics, it nevertheless failed to garner the level of praise enjoyed by its predecessor.
Why it deserves a revisiting: Not only is From Beyond almost as good as Re-Animator (and arguably equal to it), it’s also a superb companion piece to that film. Released only a year apart, both movies take the works of H.P. Lovecraft and gleefully update them into modern-day settings, all while imbuing their outlandish concepts with a blackly comic sensibility. Both also enjoy the benefits of a game cast (Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton star in both movies), phenomenal practical effects work, and several gruesome sequences of over-the-top gore that are often ladled with sexual overtones (particularly those featuring the sex kitten-ish Crampton).
None of this is to say that From Beyond is an exact replica of Re-Animator, for while it’s tonally similar it’s also perhaps even more outlandish in both concept and execution. For one thing, it ventures much further into the realm of “body-horror” than the latter film ever did, featuring as it does some of the most exuberantly disgusting “human-to-what-the-fuck-am-I-looking-at” transformations ever committed to celluloid. Indeed, in many ways the film actually one-ups its forebear for pure wall-to-wall outrageousness; though Gordon will likely never top the infamous “severed-head cunnilingus” scene in his previous film (a tough act to follow if there ever was one), From Beyond features perhaps an even more bountiful supply of sheer gross-out horror moments. Also, if you straight dudes thought Crampton was foxy in Re-Animator, just wait `til you get a look at her in bondage gear.
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There’s been a lot of talk about how Christopher Nolan snuck in some horror elements into his epic adaptation of The Odyssey. However, even before the Cyclops began to eat Ithican soldiers and Circe subjected them to magical body-horror, cinemagoers were already witnessing supernatural terror through a certain trailer that was attached to most IMAX screenings of Nolan’s film.
It turns out that this trailer was for Rob Savage’s Other Mommy, an adaptation of Bird Box author Josh Malerman’s horror novel, Incidents Around the House. With the teaser now available online and revealing that the award-winning Jessica Chastain is playing the titular antagonist (as well as her ill-fated human counterpart), not to mention the fact that the picture is being helmed by the director of hits like Host and The Boogeyman, genre fans are understandably hyped for this upcoming thriller.
That’s why I’ve decided to take a closer look at the trailer and share four things we learned from this sneak peek at Other Mommy!
4. Rob Savage is Going Back to His Supernatural Horror Roots
I know I’m in the minority when I admit that Dashcam is my favorite Rob Savage movie, but even I understand why the filmmakers’ fans have been waiting a while for the director to get back to telling more grounded paranormal stories as he did with 2020’s Host.
Other Mommy obviously isn’t a found footage movie, but moments like the poltergeist activity on the kitchen table combined with the nature of the source material, which actually features a full-on exorcism, indicate that this adaptation is more than a simple creature feature. That’s why I think Savage is once again going to borrow from the same ghostly narratives that made his debut film such a viral hit.
3. Other Mommy is a More Convincing Doppelganger in the Adaptation
Part of the horror from Malerman’s original novel came from the fact that the entity taking on the form of Bela’s (Arabella Olivia Clark) mother wasn’t very good at passing itself off as human. This resulted in several uncanny moments where other characters began to notice that there was something visibly wrong with the family and decided to keep their distance.
Savage’s film appears to be taking a different route, with the trailer showing a version of the entity that can, at least physically, imitate Chastain’s character perfectly. This change is likely the result of the filmmakers wanting to incorporate more paranoid scenes where Bela and her father, played by Jay Duplass, are confused about which Mommy is safe to interact with.
2. The Family is Also Better Off This Time Around
Incidents Around the House featured some interesting subtext about how poverty can negatively affect American family dynamics. After all, the main characters were already feeling scared and isolated before the entity emerged from Bela’s closet and began scratching at their emotional wounds. The trailer for the movie, however, depicts the family as being relatively well off before these incidents begin to occur.
I can only imagine that this part of the story was changed so that the family’s fall from grace can be even more dramatic as the mom and dad’s pasts are revealed and Bela falls further into the clutches of the demonic antagonist.
1. Jessica Chastain is Embodying Evil Dead Rise’s Alyssa Sutherland
Mothers turning against their children is one of the most disturbing horror tropes out there (just check out classics like Hereditary and Carrie if you need proof), but it takes a remarkably skilled actress to pull off such a monstrous transformation. This is especially true when both a regular, loving mother and the Other share the screen in the same film.
That’s why I appreciate how Chastain appears to be channeling another evil redhead mother that recently traumatized audiences with her performance. It’s too early to be sure, but I’m fairly confident that Chastain’s character has at least some amount of Ellie in her cinematic DNA – Ellie being the iconic deadite brought to life by Australian actress Alyssa Sutherland in 2023’s Evil Dead Rise.
Let us know in the comments if you think we missed any important details from the trailer, and don’t forget to check out Other Mommy when it hits theaters on October 9!
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