Lovecraftian

 

 (themoviedb.org)

FROM BEYOND-1986-Dr. Tillingast (Jeffery Combs) is accused of killing his superior Dr. Pretorius (Ted Sorel) who's found decapitated. He says something bit off Pretorius' head. They were working on a machine dubbed “the Pretorius resonator”) that stimulates the pineal gland. A notorious psychiatrist Katherine McMichaels (Barbra Crampton) doesn't believe Tillingast is insane and takes him back to where they were experimenting. Police Sgt. Brownlee (Ken Foree) accompanies them. They turn on the machine and meet the nude reanimated body of Dr. P. He turns into a whatziz and almost eats them but Tillingast turns the machine off. McMichael becomes obsessed with learning more. After almost being eaten again, she escapes and after doing her famous s & m scene has to fight the bizarrely transformed Pretorius. Later everyone thinks she's insane. A crazed female doctor wants her to have shock therapy. She escapes and Tillingast runs around the hospital killing people. When she returns to destroy the resonator, Tillingast kidnaps her. Pretorius somehow returns and terrorizes her. She defeats him and goes insane. 

A lot of disgusting SFX (by a huge crew) made this a cult film but Crampton helped too. She was later on the TV soap operas “The Guiding Light” and “The Bold and The Beautiful”. Conceptual art by Neal Adams. An Empire Pictures release, filmed in Italy, Charles Band was one of the producers. 

Director Stuart Gordon had already become a cult like director after making RE-ANIMATOR (1985), also with Crampton & Combs. Producer Brian Yuzna co-wrote the screenplay with Dennis Paoli based on the HP Lovecraft short story “From Beyond”. A more recent adaptation of the same story is BANSHEE CHAPTER (2013).

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Fightful

(imdb)

FRIGHTMARE-1983-Some idiot fans of the recently deceased horror star Conrad Razoff (Ferdinand Mayne; THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS (1967)) steal his corpse and have a party where they get drunk and dance with him. Later they put him in the attic. His wife contacts a psychic (Nita Talbott) who performs a seance that brings Conrad back to life. He kills most of them (including Jeffery Combs in his third film) and a fat cop investigates. One guy (future director Luca Bercovici) is cremated alive. Leon Askin (from TV's "Hogan's Heroes" has a small role). 

Confused typical '80's slasher nonsense written & directed by Norman Thaddeus Vane who many years earlier penned The Herman's Hermits movie MRS. BROWN, YOU'VE GOT A LOVELY DAUGHTER (1968).

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Re-Animator Re-Animated

BEYOND RE-ANIMATOR-2003-Dr. Herbert West (Jeffery Coombs) is locked up in prison. A new prison doctor Howard Phillips (Jason Barry) who as a kid saw his sister killed by one of West's resurrected corpses enlists West in an effort to revive his experiments in this US-Spain co-production from director Brian Yuzna.

They revive a patient who becomes just as violent as past "victims". The idiot warden (Simon Andreu) makes a female reporter (Barbara Elorrieta) bark like a dog then kills her. A revived rat causes a lot of problems and one inmate releases all the prisoners from their cells and starts a riot. Meanwhile West and Phillips experiment on the warden to save the life of the reporter. It also features Elsa Pataky as a nurse who has a brief topless scene and Santiago Segura (also in Franco's KILLER BARBYS).

Coombs is still great as the insane but always analytical West but this tries too hard to be like the original and fails by becoming too comical and over top. Yuzna should have quit at 2 instead of making this ridiculous mess.

Not That Much Soul

ALL SOUL’S DAY-2005-2 couples wander into a desert town in Mexico and interrupt a human sacrifice (during The Day of The Dead) thus setting into motion the return of the town’s murdered dead. David Keith is the local sheriff who rips a girls tongue out and creepy Danny Trejo is the guy who started it all years before by becoming immortal. 

Several TV actors star. Laura Harring (from David Lynch’s MULLHOLLAND DRIVE) is in it and Jeffery Combs has a small role. It was alright but the version I saw was cut.

Director Jeremy Kasten later remade HG Lewis’ THE WIZARD OF GORE with Crispin Glover! Screenwriter Mark A. Altman wrote HOUSE OF THE DEAD and (the Star Trek related) FREE ENTERPRISE.
T
hanks for reading!