Watch From Beyond

From Beyond is a film that takes the bizarre, inter-dimensional horror of H.P. Lovecraft and brought it to the stage. Using a cast of actors that had appeared in films like Reanimator, particularly the lead Jeffrey Combs, From Beyond brings a story based on Lovecraft's mythos to a gory and grotesque life. When two scientists build a machine called the Resonator to stimulate the Pineal gland (part of the brain responsible for reception), they succeed only too well. The lead scientist is dragged into another dimension by creatures drawn to the Resonator, and his assistant was driven half mad by the experience.

The film begins after the initial disappearance of the scientist, and after his assistant has been arrested. Foul play is suspected, but no one can prove anything, so the assistant is released. However, he and other curious people are drawn back to the house to try and recreate the experiments with the Resonator. Turning the machine back on though creates several effects. The brains of those nearby begin to react differently to stimuli, resulting in personality shifts and a seeking of increased stimulation. The doorway to the other world is opened and the initial scientist returns as a Cthonian horror capable of altering his form into blood, brutal dimensions.

His experiences have driven him mad, and he wants to take more people back to that other place with him. While all three of the investigators are affected, none are so profoundly changed as the former assistant, whose pineal gland is so sensitive and enlarged that it grows out of his forehead like a third eye. In order to stem the agony of it, he has to devour human brains. In the end though he sacrifices himself to destroy the Resonator and to shut his former mentor away in that other plane of existence for good. Or, as horror films go, until someone else figured out how to rebuild the Resonator.