Part Three of a Series
Killer Cuts #5, 6, 7 - ReAnimator, From Beyond, Dagon
For today's Killer Cuts we're going for the horror hat trick
and featuring three films by director Stuart Gordon, all loosely based (and by
“loose” I mean middle-aged porn actress loose) on stories by one Howard
Phillips Lovecraft. Gordon is a director who I find to be hit or miss, but he
seems at his strongest when adapting and modernizing Lovecraft, all the while
adding his own sense of psycho-sexual perversion and dark humor to the
proceedings.
Re-Animator is wrong on oh-so many levels,
it is a darkly funny, disturbing and somewhat erotic take on obsession and
lust. Anchored by a manic career-defining performance by Jeffrey Combs,
Re-Animator is a movie that for many reasons could not be made in today's
extremely politically correct zeitgeist. Maybe it could, but I think modern pop
culture would have a hard time getting past the headless cunnilingus. While
we're on the subject, the fact that I used the words "headless cunnilingus"
in describing the film should make you want to fire this guy up in the old
DVD/Blu-Ray/Streaming-whatever as you trek through your terror trove this
Halloween.
From Beyond is a deeply flawed movie, particularly in the
final act -- but up until then it delivers as much freaky dirty horror fun as
one can legally have. Bringing back his leads from Re-Animator (Jeffrey Combs
and Barbara Crampton), Stuart Gordon goes deeper into the rabbit hole of pain
and sex and pleasures of the flesh, almost but not quite stepping into
Hellraiser territory. Yes, some of the effects in From Beyond are laughably
bad, as is some of the dialogue, but ultimately a horror movie like this should
(in equal parts) freak us out, disturb us a little, and do it all while
titillating some primal urge within us. Despite its great and many flaws, From
Beyond manages to do all of those things.
Dagon is the most recent of Gordon's attempts to adapt
Lovecraft and is a movie that finds itself as the odd man out. Not as wild and
fun as Re-Animator and not as memorable as From Beyond, Dagon is nonetheless a
creepy and effective horror film, imbuing the viewer with a palpable sense of
dread and discomfort.
Perhaps the thing that sets Dagon apart from Gordon's
previous films on this list is a distinct sense of restraint. Call it the
maturity of a director much more experienced than when he made his first two
Lovecraft adaptations, or chalk it up to the natural result of a creepy setting
that lends itself to suspense -- either way, Dagon is built on a potboiler
framework with a sense of isolation that makes the movie quite effective. Those
who prefer slow escalating scares to the madcap insanity of Re-Animator or the
kink of From Beyond may find that Dagon is their favorite of the three.
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