Editorials
The Slimy Creatures and Pineal Glands ‘From Beyond’ [It Came From the ’80s]
It Came From the ‘80s is a monthly series that pays homage to the monstrous, deadly, and often slimy creatures that made the ‘80s such a fantastic decade in horror.
Based on a 7-page short story by H.P. Lovecraft, From Beyond unleashed a loose adaptation filled with gooey creatures, phallic pineal glands, and body horror washed in neon pink haze. It also marked a reunion between director Stuart Gordon, screenwriter Dennis Paoli, producer Brian Yuzna, and actors Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton, continuing their collaboration on Lovecraft adaptations, something that Gordon had hoped to continue in a series.
Knowing how surreal he would push this creature-heavy nightmare spectacle, effects artists John Carl Buechler and John Naulin were also carried over from Re-Animator.
Filmed in Italy with a mostly Italian crew to keep the effects-heavy production budget down, there were four separate effects teams that worked on the effects in From Beyond. With roughly 86 of the film’s scenes including special effects, you can bet each and every member was vital. Mark Shostrom (Evil Dead II, DeepStar Six, Phantasm II) was in charge of creature and prosthetic design for the largest creature of the film; the ever-evolving Pretorius creature. While some of the Pretorius creature effects were animatronic, many were also actor Ted Sorel covered in prosthetics and makeup. It was a job he was excited to take on, too, being the nephew of legendary Universal monster makeup creator Jack P. Pierce (The Wolf Man, Frankenstein).
Ted Sorel’s Dr. Edward Pretorius may have been the primary antagonist, an icy scientist that becomes less and less recognizably human as the story progresses, but his Pretorius creature isn’t the only one brought forth from the multi-dimension machine, the Resonator. Once flipped on, it allows those within range to see beyond reality into another dimension, and the other dimension to see into our realm by expanding the pineal gland. It allows protagonist Dr. Crawford Tillinghast (Combs), psychiatrist Dr. Katherine McMichaels (Crampton), and Detective Bubba Brownlee (Ken Foree) to see floating eels, monstrous lampreys, and flesh-eating bugs.
The MPAA wasn’t a fan of the completed film and refused to grant it an R-rating, in part because of the gore and sexuality (namely the S&M footage). More so, the team had to convince the MPAA that the pineal gland was a thing that actually existed; the MPAA was convinced that the little squirming thing that protruded from Tillinghast’s forehead was simply a penis. Naulin and crew had to show them that the pineal gland was not only a legit part of the brain, but their animatronic effect was designed to look like the true pineal gland. Gordon did trim a few of the more extreme shots, and so the MPAA finally did grant it an R-rating.
Proving the adage that artists bleed for their work, Naulin, who handled optical water tank creature creation and special makeup effects, got his hand caught between stage doors during production and severed two fingers in the process of trying to free his hand. The viscera and blood made Gordon pass out when he saw it. Luckily, both fingers were reattached, but it’s a fun anecdote worth sharing because Naulin was waist deep in water the very next day, shooting the scene that featured Tillinghast’s encounter with the mammoth lamprey in the flooded basement.
The fun thing about Lovecraft’s writing is that the creatures that haunt his pages are vague in description, leaving a wide margin for interpretation. Gordon, Yuzna, and their frequent collaborators take their interpretation to the best possible extreme in From Beyond. It’s slimy, gooey, creative, violent, and gory by way of darkness and humor. Gordon never quite managed to get the Lovecraft series going that he intended, but every time he would team up with Combs and Crampton for a Lovecraft adaptation, it sure was magic.
College kids, strippers and vampires—those were Donald P. Borchers’ only requirements when he approached Richard Wenk about writing and directing a movie for New World Pictures. As requested, Wenk cooked up Vamp (1986), a tailor-made blend of the decade’s teen movie craze as well as its horror boom.
Grim and earnest stories were still very much a part of the ’80s horror landscape, yet Vamp is something of a comedy. One difference between it and, say, Saturday the 14th, though, is the former avoids using schtick. Wenk’s movie proves that horror comedies also don’t have to subtract thrills from their recipes. Of course, it takes a minute before reaching that point; college antics and culture shocks preface this one macabre misadventure.
Vamp‘s initial setup is apt for a typical college-set, sex-driven comedy; to bribe their way into a fraternity house, two pledges (Chris Makepeace, Robert Rusler) go looking for some adult entertainment. Without wasting time on any further exposition, the characters embark on an all-in-one-night trip that quickly detours into terror.
To procure their elusive MacGuffin—a stripper willing to gyrate for some frat boys—Keith (Makepeace) and AJ (Rusler), plus a third wheel named Duncan (Gedee Watanabe), trade the safety of their remote college campus for the seediness of some unnamed city. The setting is recognizably L.A. by day, but as soon as night falls, downtown, along with the characters, slips into a kind of surreal universe. Director of photography Elliot Davis gave this early entry on his prolific résumé an unusual yet distinctive look; that Mario Bava-esque, magenta-green lighting is omnipresent, so much so that it’s almost its own character.
Chris Makepeace and Robert Rusler in Vamp
The faint comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours are merited, although not just because of Vamp’s distinguishing nighttime aesthetic. Save for the primary characters, the supporting roles in Wenk’s movie are also quite colorful and transactional in their behavior. The difference here, though, is the additional urge to ruin Keith and his friends at every turn. Some of that harm is humorous and tolerable enough, whereas the moment Vamp dishes out its first fatality, it’s abundantly clear how this movie qualifies as horror.
Vamp falls into that category of horror movie that reveals its genre with a scream rather than a series of whispers. The opening scene can function as a hint of what lies ahead—things are not at all what they appear to be—but otherwise, Wenk is more than happy to hold off on the horror. When that time does come, though, it catches the viewer off guard. In addition to the pure shock value is that sudden decision to upend the movie’s foremost feature. Or so it would seem.
If afraid of major spoilage, those new to Vamp would be wise to stop reading here. There’s just no skirting around the fact that the central fellowship in this buddy movie hits a serious snag when AJ is killed. That development causes the story to become more of a “long, bad night” journey for Keith and his romantic interest. So while Wenk scores points for subverting expectations, there is also a touch of sadness in his decision. Because if Vamp does anything well, it’s making the characters likable.
Something that comes easily to Vamp—and other teen horror movies from this same era—is its ability to invent young characters worth caring about, or at the very least, are interesting and not so immediately off-putting. More impressive is how Wenk did all this without actually fleshing out those characters. Still and all, Keith and his kind are a grade above cookie-cutter, and in some cases, aren’t completely devoid of growth.
Grace Jones in Vamp
Vamp appeals with an assorted cast of characters. No two are the same, nor are they operating on the same wavelength. The cinematically extroverted AJ, whose actor conveyed charm and vulnerability in near equal amounts, comes alive when he’s at his most undead. Makepeace then makes the chronically cautious Keith a sympathetic fellow, even as he’s more and more affected by the night’s bizarre events. Meanwhile, Duncan is indeed the designated loser of the whole bunch, but Watanabe still manages to humanize him. As a bonus, the role didn’t require him to pull a Long Duk Dong.
As for Dedee Pfeiffer, she is plain adorable as the mysterious After Dark server nicknamed “Amaretto”. She spends all night fixing her dress strap while at the same time trying to get Keith to remember how he knows her. As their offbeat romance grows, it becomes another highlight of this movie. Whether or not Pfeiffer’s character is really a vampire also creates some welcome tension in the story.
Like a lot of its contemporaries, Vamp went on to become a bit of a cult classic. That current status is determined by several factors, but without a doubt, the casting of Grace Jones is the most considerable. The image of her writhing on that unique-looking chair, a Keith Haring original, springs to mind whenever this movie is brought up.
Chris Makepeace, Billy Drago and Paunita Nichols in Vamp
Prior to that first display of unequivocal horror, local vampire queen Katrina (Jones) took to the stage and delivered a strip show like no other. One would expect nothing less from that renowned model and performance artist. By now reports of Jones’ tardiness on set are no secret, yet it’s also hard to deny her commitment to the part of Katrina. It was, in fact, Jones who took charge of her character’s appearance—on top of Haring painting her body and that now-iconic chair, she had Andy Warhol handle her costuming. And not too many actors could seize a room’s attention without saying a single line of dialogue.
In 2022, Vamp received a retrospective novelization from Encyclopocalypse. This literary union of preexisting source material—Wenk’s original screenplay—and new ideas from author Christian Francis amounts to a more comprehensive visit to the After Dark Club. The basic story there is no different than what’s shown on screen; however, Francis gets creative with the characters’ origins and designs, and he enhances a number of key scenes.
The novelization expands on the urban and social decay of the main setting, and supplies a background for the After Dark Club. Sandy Baron’s character, Katrina’s emcee and familiar, is given ample motivation for sticking around; up until the fiery end, he is loyal to his friend and former business partner “Squeak”, who looks like he was “fed through a combine harvester, and left as nothing more than a heap of mangled remains”. Then there is Billy Drago’s character Snow, the leader of a street gang called The Dragons. His reason for menacing Keith and AJ is more altruistic than in the movie; he and his peers act tough to scare off any potential food for the vampires.
Lisa Lyon in Vamp
If not for all the backstories, Francis’ Vamp would be a hell of a lot shorter. Instead, this tie-in read dives into how AJ met Keith—the orphaned Anthony Joseph hailed from a broken home back in Brooklyn—and how their friendship flourished over the years. Keith’s archership is no longer just an assumed part of his entire being; it’s a confidence-building extracurricular for a boy who got picked on before coming into the protection of the new kid in town. These supplemental, in-depth looks at the protagonists, plus their close connection, are maybe unnecessary. The movie already did a fair and concise job of addressing their platonic intimacy without the need for flashbacks and insights, specifically in that scene where AJ lays it all out as he sacrifices himself.
Where the novelization gets off course is its approach to the minor characters. Intermittently backstorying the likes of Katrina’s indentured servants, Seko (Leila Hee Olsen) and Vlad (Brad Logan), ends up disturbing the flow of the writing. Was it absolutely essential that readers know Vlad was the Grand Duke of the House of Romanov, or how Snow’s accomplice Maven (Paunita Nichols) became so dentally challenged? No, not really. However, one’s mileage with these random biographies may vary.
The novelization is a more substantial experience, but for a movie like Vamp, less is more. And as plentiful as they are, it never simply coasts on its campy charms, either. The character work sits comfortably in that realm between cursory and meticulous, the script is sharper than first realized, and Greg Cannom’s vampire makeup is straightforward yet effective. Most of all, the movie didn’t squander its out-of-the-box concept. Richard Wenk made his vision of a “comic nightmare in which just about anything that can go wrong does” come true, and it is very enjoyable.
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