Few directors have been as devoted to a single source as Stuart Gordon has to the works of H.P. Lovecraft. Throughout his varied career, Gordon has tackled Lovecraft five times to date, the second of which was 1986's From Beyond, starring Ted Sorel, Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton. Released a year after his breakout cult hit Re-Animator, From Beyond rivals and perhaps even trounces its big brother in sheer grossness, depravity, and all-around ickiness - in other words, this is a movie that was made to relieve its viewers of their lunches or any other recent meals they've ingested.

In the attic laboratory of a gloomy old house, the ominously-named Dr. Edward Pretorius (Ted Sorel) and his assistant, the even more improbably-named Crawford Tillinghast (Jeffrey Combs), are working on more than your average mad scientist experiment. Through a beastly machine called the Resonator, the men have found a way to stimulate the pineal gland, allowing a person's sixth sense to open up and peer into the strange world overlapping our own.

As it turns out, this world is filled with unspeakable monsters, which send Crawford to the nuthouse and leave Pretorius looking like a dead ringer for the Headless Horseman. The only one who believes Crawford's wild tales is enterprising shrink Katherine McMichaels (Barbara Crampton), who, with cop Bubba Brownlee (Ken Foree) for protection, gets Crawford released into her custody in order to repeat the Resonator experiments. But waiting for them on the other side is Pretorius, who's left his human form behind in favor of becoming something that looks like what would happen if you poured melted Jell-O on a hairless cat.

As far as Lovecraft adaptations go, consider From Beyond to be a less-jokier version of Re-Animator, trading the outlandishly goofy gore and gallows sense of humor in favor of a much darker tone that's spiritually closer to James Whale's original Frankenstein. It's your basic tale of science gone wrong that makes itself stand out from the rest of the pack by way of its almost uncomfortably grisly effects. Gordon definitely doesn't skimp on giving his viewers an up close and personal look at pure evil at its ugliest, devising an array of tentacled beasties, slimy eels that swim in the air, and gigantic worms with more teeth than most dentists will ever see in their lives. Also, remember that this is the mid-1980s, when studios had to rely on skilled effects people instead of computers to bring such creations to life. The practical technique gives the effects a creepy boost, as the massive and fleshy monster Pretorius comes across as a rubbery harbinger of death instead of some funky cartoon.

True, one could say that From Beyond is a one-trick pony that's more concerned with grossing its viewers out than with presenting a wholly engrossing story. It's definitely an ambitious feature, but the flick's not without its faults. The plot loses steam about halfway through, going from being a rather thought-provoking horror tale about a corruptive supernatural force to being a somewhat clunky festival of brain-munching and body-dissolving.

From Beyond was based on one of Lovecraft's short stories, and it shows, particularly in how the flick generates about half a movie's worth of effective atmosphere before giving in to its more outrightly exploitative side. The acting is a bit of a mixed bag, with horror favorite Combs (from 1999's House on Haunted Hill remake) and Sorel going so over-the-top that they're acting somewhere in the stratosphere, while Crampton and Foree get stuck with pretty unexciting roles. Foree's character is especially curious, since he randomly shows up out of nowhere and tags along with the group, and the viewer doesn't even really know he's a cop until the flick's almost over.

From Beyond may not be the finest the horror genre has to offer, but I can guarantee that it's not a flick any of its viewers are going to forget quickly (for obvious reasons). Ooey-gooey effects aside, however, the flick serves up a solid spin on the mad scientist formula, worth a watch no matter the degree of grip you have on your gag reflex.

Director: Stuart Gordon

Writer: Dennis Paoli (adaptation by Brian Yuzna, Dennis Paoli, and Stuart Gordon)

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

Rating: R (profanity, nudity, and mucho violence -- unrated on DVD)

Classic Movie Guide Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Run Time: 85 minutes (unrated version: 86 minutes)

Studio: Empire Pictures

Format: Color, widescreen