Posted by Guest Reviewer Steve Anderson.
H.P. Lovecraft
movies are generally a good bet. There
really are only a handful of them, and most of them turned out well.
There are the great Jeffrey Combs performances of the RE-ANIMATOR series, the
romp that was FROM BEYOND, and even NECRONOMICON, which had its pluses. Let's
be charitable about things and not bring up DAGON. And those of you
bringing up CTHULHU MANSION, hey now, that wasn’t
really that bad. Especially when you stack it up against DAGON. But
at any rate, BEYOND THE WALL OF SLEEP is going to prove to be somewhere in
between the polar extremes of RE-ANIMATOR and DAGON.
What we have here
storywise is about par for the Lovecraftian course -- lots of quack science
intermingled with insanity, lots of scientists abusing their positions, and
lots and lots of bloody messes. A "mountain man", one of those
living in the counterculture of the Catskill Mountains
around the 1920, is committed to the Ulster County Asylum, following the brutal
murder of his own family. The mountain man in question has a succession
of odd growths on his back, and as the asylum probes the mountain man, soon it
becomes apparent that he's not what he looks to be. And that's when all
hell breaks loose.
BEYOND THE WALL OF
SLEEP looks to have everything it needs to join that grand fraternity of choice
Lovecraft. Especially from the first five minutes, BEYOND THE WALL OF
SLEEP takes fullest advantage of that classic confused terror that is the
hallmark of pretty much anything H.P. Lovecraft ever did. From the
beginning, you are quite sure that something is very, very bad wrong here...and
yet, you have no real way of knowing just what that something is. And
despite your hopes, you will likely never know just what it is that went
wrong.
Only that it did. Now there are more than a few horror fans out
there who like their stories clean and delineated. A start, a middle, a
clear and obvious end with maybe a couple nodded-at loose ends for sequel
potential down the line. This is by and
large not the standard operating procedure for Lovecraft horror.
The most horrendous enemies of reality will be brought into play--possibly only
for moments--before being banished to the realms from whence they came and all
like that. And who knows for how long?
Which is actually
Lovecraft in the truest sense. The monsters are truly monstrous--Freddy
Krueger would probably wet himself if he ever got a good look at Hastur, and
even old Michael Myers would start screaming and gibbering if put in the same
room as the classically-described Yog-Sothoth. They're only barely
repulsed, and the chances that they'll come back sometime in the near future
are a pretty good shot indeed. Which
I'll confess isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea. It's scary, make no
mistake, but it's really more scary in the "think about it" sense
than it is the "huge evil monster jumps out from the shadows and eats your
sister's face" sense.
The ending is also
pretty standard as Lovecraft goes--watch for the classic appearance of
squid-face Cthulhu as well as Amdusceus, a fairly new player to the
Lovecraftian horror scene. The special
features include filmmakers' commentary, English and Spanish subtitles,
storyboard gallery, audio options, a behind the scenes featurette, and trailers
for "Akeelah and the Bee", "Madea's Family Reunion",
"A Good Woman", "Minotaur", "Maid Of Honor",
"Beyond the Wall of Sleep", and "The Graveyard".
All in all, it's
Lovecraft. For better or for worse, it's genuine, honest to goodness
Lovecraft, with all its faults and foibles cleanly intact. "Beyond
the Wall of Sleep" may well be the most representative example of Howard
Philip's work to come out to video stores in quite some time.
RATING: ** and a
half (out of four)
Finding this movie in the video store was a godsend. After for what seemed like forever of wading through crappy remakes and "MTV Horror" movies I caught this one and did something I hadn't done in years, I watched it again, and again... If I see this movie in best buy or someplace I will buy it immediately! some effects are hokey but for the most part it really captured that Lovecraftian feel.
Posted by: Donnie 5 | May 13, 2008 at 03:36 PM
i come here first time. Not a bad flick though I had to get used to the cgi snake,hated the sequel. Waiting...
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