I have a bit of a time crunch this morning so this will simply be a quick observation.

During the week I started a re-watch of From Beyond the second H.P. Lovecraft adaptation from Stuart Gordon following his version of Reanimator with returning cast member Barbara Crampton and Jeffrey Combs.

While the script is far from stellar it was perfectly serviceable, at least at the start before it veered into distinctly non-Lovecraftian area of BDSM and sexuality but right from the start the film is undercut and severely damaged by its cinematography.

The scenes are well lit, and everything is clear and shop from the foreground to the background and that is the trouble. Now I do not know if this was because of some budget restraints, directorial edict or simply a stylistic choice by DOP Mac Ahlberg but it doesn’t work.

Even when the characters are supposedly in a darkened space and using flashlights the scenes are well-lit and everything is perfectly visible. There is no use of shadow and darkness of create danger and mystery in the character’s space a serious failing for any horror film. There is nice work when the ‘resonator’ is engaged and the scenes become bathed in lavender and purple as the other-worldly dimension intrudes into our own, but had the other scenes been lit more realistically, with more care to the light and shadow then the drastic change during the inter-dimensional events would have been more effective.