Customer Reviews

Beyond the Wall of Sleep

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(28)

 

 

Just because a hulking monster with writhing tentacles out of it mouth appears for 3 seconds you can't call this Lovecraft. This is an awful movie. It tries to be psychological by constantly bombarding the view with shaky images of bloody stuff. The movie steals all the clichés of Asylum movies and throws in a few scenes where high school level acting is attempted. If you want a better Lovecraftian adaptation, check out the movie Dagon. If I could give it 0 stars I would. Oh. . .one more thing the special effects guy should study a bit more anatomy the gross scenes would be more scary and realistic.

I would encourage you to rent this movie, but watch it with the commentary. The commentary by the film makers is hilarious! The movie commentary transformed what could have been a waste of time for the evening into a fun and quite enjoyable affair. The film makers definitely have a sense of humor about their work (and more than one vodka while creating the commentary, I suspect) so you get uninhibited flowing humorous commentary throughout the whole thing. Plus, it did increase my empathy for low budget film makers and the problems they face.
1 star movie -- 5 star commentary -- I'll give it a 3 star for average. Definitely fun and enjoyable to watch with commentary.

Hey, I'm an H.P. Lovecraft reader, and my expectations are high. I'm always hopeful when the title of a movie `says' the film is inspired by HLP. But . . .

The writer/director was really--really trying, but he lost control from the beginning. The film began with a series of disjoined images and dialogue which were startling, but there was no suspenseful build up.

Okay, it's difficult to put Lovecraft on the big screen anyway, but the stilted dialogue didn't help. The range of acting ability was uneven, and that didn't help. Also, using black and white, well, why? B&W can be used to build a great mood and suspense but this film had neither so using B&W footage was pointless. And the blood and gore just for the sake of it . . . better luck next time.

If you want to watch Lovecraft on film, rent the `Resurrected' with Chris Sarandon or go back to `Re-Animator.'

First off, I would like to say save your money on this rental, see if you can get it as a free rental, then you won't kick yourself as hard for wasting 1 1/2 hours watching it as I did.
But, if you are a fan or corney B horrors, this will lead the pact of a new low budget films.
This movie was just bad. Descent storyline (based on H.P. Lovecraft) that just streached out to long. An intern in an asylum discovers a new way to harness human thought in those who cannot speak for themselves, sounds good, done poorly.
The Gore factor got old within the first 20 minutes. The acting was, well not there, some folks just reading there lines, some in bad inbred accents, others in bad German accents. I feel it did no justice to the Psychiatric field, just riddled with horrible inaccuracies. Tom Cruise would love this film, because he's use it as propaganda against Psychiatry. Finally, just plain predictable, didn't hold my attention.
Pluses: Neat camera work, intresting splicing of film and scenes.
Minuses: as noted above.

Again, if you like B horror films, this would be up your alley, but don't be mislead that this may be a descent horror film because it has H.P. Lovecraft on it. Didn't give it a one because it is just a B film, and as expected, they are supposed to be corny

From Savini's stilted cameo, to the amatuer special make-up effects, to the bad early 80's style video effects, this "film" is a complete waste of time.

While I fully understand all beginning film-makers need to start somewhere, and that most of their first attempts are painfully bad, this one really takes the cake!

To say this was LOOSELY based on a HP Lovecraft, is an understatement. Sadly, there are extremely few films that stay true to Lovecraft's writings. And, this one is a prime example. It starts out with a few incoherant murmurs of the original story, then quickly devolves into a mess of self-agrandizing scene-chewing.

DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS!!! It has next to nothing to do with Lovecraft, except the title. Even if you are a complete masochist and JUST HAVE TO SEE IT, sucker the local village idiot to rent it for you. DO NOT BUY IT.

I will start by noting I love bad horror movies. I have seen Killer Tomatoes a dozen times. I once bought a horror DVD solely because it starred Alice Cooper. That said, this is possibly the worst acting I have ever seen, and I include in this assessment every kindergarten school pageant and poorly-conceived Nativity Scene with live animals I have ever attended. To fully heighten the experience, the audio track appears to have been recorded in a men's room of a major international airport, wherein no one is in the same stall with the mike. I can only guess the creators saw "The Elephant Man" at some point, and thought removing all budget, talent, and production value would improve the work. Everyone in the picture seems to be wearing a wig, but they're of the $2 Halloween variety, and none sit correctly on the respective skulls of the wearers. The final thrill is that in the various "medical" scenes, the property man clearly just bought a number of doctor's items without understanding what they are for, and laid them out to look impressive. I made it ten or fifteen minutes into this before giving up and turning it off, which apparently means I have seen five minutes more than the average Netflix viewer. This is NOT a movie to be watched, this is a movie to be laid down and avoided.

I would have to say that this is one of the worst movies that I have ever watched. I'm a big horror fan and I really find the ones pertaining to insane asylums very interesting. The cover of the dvd looked very interesting and the review on the back of the dvd lead me to believe this would be my kind of movie. I was sadly mistaken, it was so bad that I just finally cut the movie off about halfway through. I almost asked for my money back from the video store, it was sooo bad and sooo boring! I could have done a better acting job than the actors in this movie. Take my advice and don't waste your time or money on this movie.

If I could give it negative stars I would. It has no plot or point. It goes on way too long. Lovecraft is probably rolling in his grave over this one.

In fifty words or less: Geographically confused hillbillies inbreed for the glory of Cthulhu. One such hillbilly has a fetal twin trying to claw its way out of his back. This hillbilly kills his family, hears bad voices, and ends up institutionalized. Wackiness ensues. [Spoilers to follow. Stop reading now if you'd prefer to avoid them.]


At the institution, there's an assortment of mad doctors performing a variety of appalling experiments on patients - none more vigorously and with greater manic glee than the intern Edward Eischel. Edward keeps a brain-dead sex slave down in the basement, her skull hinged like a Tic-Tac dispenser for the easy application of needley electrodes. Down in the lab, Edward collects brains in jars, cackles wickedly, plots the downfall of his bosses, and wears what can only be described as the worst wig in the history of movie-making. This is a wig with such godawful presence that it permits Edward to use editorial "we" without sounding like a schizophrenic. Clearly, when he says "We'll show THEM who's in charge!" - by "we" he means "me and this-here wig."

At any rate, dear mad Edward decides that the fetal twin rearing up out of the hillbilly's back has a mind of its own, and he wants to use his wazzy electrical brain-probing equipment to make contact with it. But as those of you who follow Lovecraft have probably guessed by now, the fetal twin is no mere biological anomaly - heavens, no. Its name is Amducious, and it is the telepathically homicidal(?) physical representation of a hideous god-beast, who's just WAITING to burst out like a big tentacled pimple.

For reasons best left unpondered, Amducious requires nine brains in order to manifest fully in this world. Luckily for the imprisoned god-beast, Edward has already drilled a hole in his forehead for easy uplinking purposes - which yes, explains the wig, for it covers his shaved scalp with the makeshift USB port. Edward and his vegetable-minded, pop-top honey (Ardelia) wreak havoc on the asylum, popping off heads and arranging them on pikes until they form the world's most unlikely LAN party. Once all the brains are connected via wires, needles, and electrodes, to Edward - bad things happen. Amducious crawls up out of the hillbilly's backside and what had previously appeared to be "havoc in the process of being wreaked" now looks like a tea party because oh God, here comes the REALLY bad stuff ... except that the only sane and surviving doctor in the asylum has showed up with a hatchet.

This doctor busts up the electrical equipment, which (a). floors Edward and Ardelia and (b). also topples Amducious, even though he's already out and walking around - which didn't make any sense to me, but whatever. The next scene features poor Edward in a straitjacket and a padded room, while the hatchet-wielding doctor looks on and shakes his head. Roll credits.


Okay. There were a few things to like about this movie - let there be no doubt. First of all, some of the direction was very, very good. The use of black and white and the camera angles occasionally teetered toward brilliance; and Tom Savini did the make-up work (and drops by for a bit part), so that much was also laudable. There were several good actors - including William Sanderson (who deftly portrayed the afflicted hillbilly), and Rachel Mellendorf - who was um, really good at looking brain-dead.

But by and large the actors you're forced to spend the most time with are flat to the point of being grating. Edward was so bad as to be hilarious, and the foul-mouthed alienist had the worst dialogue I've ever heard. Bully on him, for knowing the F word in 1911; but every forty-five-second, spittle-flecked spiel would have been more effective at half the length. And let us touch upon the never-ending TOOL video, shall we? Shocky, Silent Hill-esque pastiches of freaky footage are effective, like, once in awhile. But ten minute stretches of them weary the eyeballs and strain the attention span, I'm just saying. We get it - children are creepy. Hillbillies are creepy. Ring-around-the-rosie is creepy.

Actually, "Ring Around the Rosie" is about to achieve the same status as cornfields in horror movies. We all know about corn, right? Crop of the damned. Ask Alfred Hitchcock, M. Night Shyamalan, or Stephen King - don't plant corn. Nothing good will come of it. If it's tall enough to hide YOU, it's tall enough to hide homicidal maniacs/aliens/demon children/etc. Plant strawberries instead; or plant something knee-high, at any rate. Remember, kids: no one ever gets mauled by fanged, skinless dog-monsters in a peanut field.

But I digress. "Ring Around the Rosey" is fast becoming the de facto signifier of wicked little children what ain't like they seem. Perhaps it's because of the plague myth of the song's inception; or perhaps it's just because it's easily recognizable and easy to remember. I don't know. But regardless, I am instantly suspicious of any story that uses "Ring Around the Rosey" as an atmospheric shortcut. It smacks of laziness.


So I say all that to say this: Beyond the Wall of Sleep was not by any means the worst low-budget horror film I've ever subjected myself to - far from it. But there was a lot wrong that would've been easy to fix (different actors, less epilepsy-inducing cut-scene tedium), and therefore, it disappoints me. It's worth renting with a bottle of booze and a few good friends with a penchant for MST3K, but otherwise, leave it wherever you find it - and don't let it follow you home.

The only two things this had going for it..

The hilarious evil lead doctor.
Joe's constant rambling of the phrase 'I just want..I just want to kiss my luvins"

Both hilarious.

Everything else will make you want to stab yourself in the eye with a pencil.

Pretty much all I watch is bad (B,C and sub grade) horror movies and this is down at the bottom of the barrel comfortably seated next to other classics like 'The Pumpkin Karver'

If you are truly a glutton for punishment and have about 80 minutes to waste, rent this.. don't waste the cash on buying it though.