The 1980s was a kind of dead time for horror films but one of the few bright spots was the work of Stuart Gordon. Gordon exploded in a bloody spray with his debut film Re-Animator. An immediate cult classic Gordon quickly moved onto his second feature, From Beyond. From Beyond was never able to reach the heights of the cult of Re-Animator because the MPAA ripped the film apart. But after 20 years From Beyond has been restored in its entirety under the supervision of Gordon. From Beyond the restored directors cut will have its world premiere on VOOMs Monsters HD, June 10, available nationally on DISH Networks. VOOMs Monsters HD is the first and only 24-hour HDTV network dedicated to monster and horror flicks.
From Beyond: The Directors Cut airs at 8pm June 10 on Monsters HD
Daniel Robert Epstein: I loved the directors cut of From Beyond. How much extra footage was put back in?
Stuart Gordon: I think it was under two minutes but it makes a big difference
DRE: It certainly adds a lot of power.
SG: Yeah. It really does. It was very upsetting to have to cut so much out of that movie but it was a great feeling it was to be able to put it back.
DRE: Obviously the film that you are still best known for is Re-Animator. But I always liked From Beyond better maybe because it was on Cinemax more when I was a kid. I always thought that From Beyond didnt get to the heights that Re-Animator hit because of the two minutes that was cut out.
SG: It got castrated by the MPAA so it was never really in the form that it was meant to be. So yeah, I think it was handicapped as a result. But now I think its back and twisted and its fantastic. Im really happy with it.
DRE: How was it watching the film again?
SG: It was fun. I hadnt seen it in awhile so it brought back a lot of memories. One scene in that the MPAA really cut to ribbons was where Jeffrey Combs is eating brains. When we were shooting that scene the brain was this piece of rubber and it was like How is he supposed to take a bite out of that? We really need him to eat it. They were trying to find something that he could bite into. They ended up making this thing out of dental adhesive so Jeffrey took a big bite out of it and his teeth literally got stuck together. He could not open his mouth.
DRE: Oh my God!
SG: We were like, Okay. Back to the drawing board.
DRE: What was the inspiration where he sucks out her eye and throws it away?
SG: I had read somewhere that when the Egyptians were creating mummies they would suck the brain out through the nose of the person, which seemed pretty insane to me. I dont know how exactly they did that. Long tweezers or something. But the idea of the brain coming out through an opening in the skull was what started me going. Then I was thinking that the eyeball means a lot more because the whole movie is about seeing things you havent seen before. So first you have to get rid of the eyeball thats blocking the socket before you can get at the brain. Its very logical thinking to come up with all of this insane stuff.
DRE: Since your wife [Carolyn Purdy-Gordon] is the one who got her eyeball sucked out, was she even more upset than you when that scene got cut up?
SG: She was upset that the movie got completely cut to ribbons. It was funny. They seemed to be going after her a lot because the other scene that they really chopped was the one where shes trying to grab the pineal gland with a pair of forceps which seemed like a fairly harmless scene to me. That scene was cut way back and we were able to put it all back in.
DRE: I cant remember if Barbara Crampton putting her hand on Jeffrey Combs crotch is in the in the original.
SG: It was, for some reason that got past them. I dont know how we managed to do that. The stuff that they chose to cut and not cut was mind-boggling. I couldnt quite figure out what the problems were. They said there was no way in hell that they would ever give us an R rating for the movie, no matter what we did. They were very freaked out by the whole thing.
DRE: Have any of your recent films had as much trouble with the MPAA?
SG: No, actually Ive had no other problems with them. I think this was payback for Re-Animator. They even called me in at one point and scolded me. It was like being sent to the principals office. It was strange. They havent made a single cut in my last couple of films.
DRE: Are most of the actors, besides Jeffrey and Barbara, people that you knew from Chicago?
SG: Ken Foree and Ted Sorel were new. I had never worked with them before. The only one that goes back to the Chicago days is my wife Carolyn.
DRE: What did Ted do in his audition that really impressed you?
SG: He projected exactly what we needed for Pretorius, which is a combination of great intellect and also a twisted sexuality. Pretorius is not satisfied with the five senses. He is a hedonist and a sensualist. He was able to give us a combination of the two things, which was great.
DRE: Of the images that you guys came up with for your screenplay, what was the most difficult one to envision on set?
SG: One of the ideas we had was that in the very first time that Pretorius shows up after he was in the beyond, we wanted him to be able to turn himself inside out. I had read somewhere that anything that has a hole running through it can be turned inside out. That seemed to also indicate that human beings could as well because theyve got a hole at each end. The idea was something that we really worked very hard to do with the special effects that were available 20 years ago.
DRE: Was the budget much greater than Re-Animator?
SG: It was. It was more than three times the size of Re-Animators budget. We had three effects companies working on the film, which was great because they were all trying to outdo each other. Some of the guys who were working as assistants on that film, I think they were like teenagers, were people like Bob Kurtzman and Howard Berger who started KNB Efx, Gabe Bartalos and John Vulich, all of whom started their own special effects companies later on. So we had this amazing talent pool which was pretty extraordinary.
DRE: Where did you shoot From Beyond?
SG: We shot the movie in Italy because and Charlie [Band] had bought Dino De Laurentiis studio there and it was enormous. So we made Dolls and From Beyond back to back on the same set. I actually filmed Dolls before I did From Beyond, but From Beyond was released earlier because Dolls had a lot of very extensive stop motion animation which took time.
DRE: Charles Band is someone you still work with.
SG: Well, I havent in awhile, but were friends. The thing about Charlie Band is that theres no such thing as a development deal with him. When I did Castle Freak, I was sitting in his office and there was a poster on the wall of his office that said Castle Freak and it had a picture of Quasimodo whipping a girl who was chained to the wall. I said, Whats that movie about? He said, Its about a castle and a freak. Then he said, I dont have a script on that. Its a poster.
DRE: It sounds like William Castle.
SG: It was. I said Sure. Ill do Castle Freak. He said, Okay. We start shooting in two months.
DRE: If the From Beyond airing on Monsters HD and the subsequent DVD does well, would you be interested in either writing, producing or even directing a sequel?
SG: Yeah. We always talked about a sequel to From Beyond when we were making it. It would be great to go back and do one because we have some ideas about the sequel, which I think are pretty cool.
DRE: What were some of the ideas?
SG: The only one that survives in that film is Barbara Cramptons character but shes completely out of her mind at the end of the movie. So the idea was that shes in an insane asylum and the doorway to the beyond is now through her. All the other characters are able to reappear by coming out of her.
DRE: Speaking of Barbara Crampton, it seems like shes game for anything.
SG: She is. Shes amazing and very brave. Although initially she refused to bite off the pineal gland because when we were working on it, one of the effects guys started talking about how it looked like a dogs dick. She said, I know what that is. Im not putting that in my mouth. I said, No. Think of it as a piece of asparagus.
DRE: What was it made of?
SG: It was probably latex rubber or something with a blood tube running through it. Another one of the shots that the MPAA made us cut out was the one where she bites it and blood spurts out. Now you can see everything she initially refused to do in all its glory.
DRE: In Re-Animator she had a severed head go down on her and then in From Beyond a guy with these really disgusting fingers touches her breasts. Did she ask you, why her?
SG: Its funny because I murdered my wife in all of my movies too. I think after awhile both of them realized that in a horror movie these are the great scenes. If youre going to be in a horror film, you want something horrific to be happening to you. Barbara really makes the scenes work. I always say good acting is the best special effect. She makes you believe its really happening.
DRE: How do you direct actors with all these special effects around?
SG: The thing about this movie was that the monsters were there. It wasnt like now where everythings a greenscreen and youre creating stuff in post-production. This was 20 years ago where there was no CG so the monsters were there. They were able to interact with them and play scenes with them. I think that makes a big difference.
DRE: What made you cast Ken Foree?
SG: He had such a great good-natured quality. Hes the only character in the whole movie thats a normal guy. We wanted somebody who really could project that so the audience would really relate to him. Ken is like that in real life so hes bringing himself. It didnt hurt that he was so well known from Dawn of the Dead.
DRE: You still work with a lot of the same guys that worked on From Beyond like [cinematographer] Mac [Ahlberg].
SG: I do. Mac is semi-retired now, but I would work with him again in a second. Hes fantastic. His work on From Beyond is so beautiful. Thats one of the things thats nice about seeing it in Hi-Def because it really captures the color. Visually its a very striking film which is due to a large degree to Macs work.
DRE: Are there going to be a lot of extras on the DVD?
SG: Yeah. Barbara, Jeffrey Combs, Brian Yuzna and I have all done commentary. Theres going to be interviews with the special effects guys talking about the conceptual artwork and storyboards. I think its going to be an amazing DVD.
DRE: How close are we to seeing real remakes of your films?
SG: I hope Im gone by the time those happen actually. Im not a big fan of those remakes.
DRE: I could easily see Brian [Yuzna] and Charles [Band] trying to do remakes of them.
SG: I know that Brian has been approached by several studios about doing a new version of Re-Animator. Its really his call because he has the rights to that project. But the original still works. Its one of the films that people are still screening. I just went to see a showing. They created a drive-in theater here in LA to screen it and the audience went crazy. The movie really holds up. If it aint broke, dont fix it.
DRE: Well theyre getting around to remaking 80s horror films. Theyre about to do The Hitcher, which came out around the same time as Re-Animator.
SG: Yeah, I know. Thats another great movie, which Im sure holds up as well.
DRE: When do you shoot your new episode of Masters of Horror, The Black Cat?
SG: Im shooting that at the beginning of September. Jeffrey Combs is playing Edgar Allan Poe, which is a part hes wanted to play forever. Theres been lots of movies that have been called The Black Cat, but they have very little to do with Poes story. Were sticking very closely to the original story and making it about Poe himself. Were combining his life and the story together.
DRE: Hows Stuck going?
SG: We are in the process of casting it right now. Im hoping were going to be in production soon.
DRE: Do you guys have the whole budget yet?
SG: Yeah, we do. Finances are not the problem. Its getting the right actors. Its mainly a two-character movie, so these guys have got to be fantastic actors. Were looking for names. There are some great actors that havent really been discovered yet, but I think for a movie like this where its really powered by these two characters, we really need a couple of names that the audience has heard of.
DRE: I read that House of Re-Animator is going to set in the White House.
SG: Yeah, were excited about that. Were in the process of writing it, so thats a little ways off.
DRE: Are you definitely directing it?
SG: Yes, we hope to start at the beginning of next year.
DRE: What has brought you back to Re-Animator?
SG: It was when George W. Bush became president, I want to say got elected but he really didnt. I actually believed that Donald Rumsfeld had died. I couldnt believe he was still around. Suddenly I had this idea that this was a reanimated Cabinet. I got very excited about the idea. Ive actually been pestering Brian to do this House of Re-Animator idea for awhile. It wasnt until Bush started his second term that Brian had finally said, Okay. I think we should do it. I think he was afraid of the idea originally.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
From Beyond: The Directors Cut airs at 8pm June 10 on Monsters HD
Daniel Robert Epstein: I loved the directors cut of From Beyond. How much extra footage was put back in?
Stuart Gordon: I think it was under two minutes but it makes a big difference
DRE: It certainly adds a lot of power.
SG: Yeah. It really does. It was very upsetting to have to cut so much out of that movie but it was a great feeling it was to be able to put it back.
DRE: Obviously the film that you are still best known for is Re-Animator. But I always liked From Beyond better maybe because it was on Cinemax more when I was a kid. I always thought that From Beyond didnt get to the heights that Re-Animator hit because of the two minutes that was cut out.
SG: It got castrated by the MPAA so it was never really in the form that it was meant to be. So yeah, I think it was handicapped as a result. But now I think its back and twisted and its fantastic. Im really happy with it.
DRE: How was it watching the film again?
SG: It was fun. I hadnt seen it in awhile so it brought back a lot of memories. One scene in that the MPAA really cut to ribbons was where Jeffrey Combs is eating brains. When we were shooting that scene the brain was this piece of rubber and it was like How is he supposed to take a bite out of that? We really need him to eat it. They were trying to find something that he could bite into. They ended up making this thing out of dental adhesive so Jeffrey took a big bite out of it and his teeth literally got stuck together. He could not open his mouth.
DRE: Oh my God!
SG: We were like, Okay. Back to the drawing board.
DRE: What was the inspiration where he sucks out her eye and throws it away?
SG: I had read somewhere that when the Egyptians were creating mummies they would suck the brain out through the nose of the person, which seemed pretty insane to me. I dont know how exactly they did that. Long tweezers or something. But the idea of the brain coming out through an opening in the skull was what started me going. Then I was thinking that the eyeball means a lot more because the whole movie is about seeing things you havent seen before. So first you have to get rid of the eyeball thats blocking the socket before you can get at the brain. Its very logical thinking to come up with all of this insane stuff.
DRE: Since your wife [Carolyn Purdy-Gordon] is the one who got her eyeball sucked out, was she even more upset than you when that scene got cut up?
SG: She was upset that the movie got completely cut to ribbons. It was funny. They seemed to be going after her a lot because the other scene that they really chopped was the one where shes trying to grab the pineal gland with a pair of forceps which seemed like a fairly harmless scene to me. That scene was cut way back and we were able to put it all back in.
DRE: I cant remember if Barbara Crampton putting her hand on Jeffrey Combs crotch is in the in the original.
SG: It was, for some reason that got past them. I dont know how we managed to do that. The stuff that they chose to cut and not cut was mind-boggling. I couldnt quite figure out what the problems were. They said there was no way in hell that they would ever give us an R rating for the movie, no matter what we did. They were very freaked out by the whole thing.
DRE: Have any of your recent films had as much trouble with the MPAA?
SG: No, actually Ive had no other problems with them. I think this was payback for Re-Animator. They even called me in at one point and scolded me. It was like being sent to the principals office. It was strange. They havent made a single cut in my last couple of films.
DRE: Are most of the actors, besides Jeffrey and Barbara, people that you knew from Chicago?
SG: Ken Foree and Ted Sorel were new. I had never worked with them before. The only one that goes back to the Chicago days is my wife Carolyn.
DRE: What did Ted do in his audition that really impressed you?
SG: He projected exactly what we needed for Pretorius, which is a combination of great intellect and also a twisted sexuality. Pretorius is not satisfied with the five senses. He is a hedonist and a sensualist. He was able to give us a combination of the two things, which was great.
DRE: Of the images that you guys came up with for your screenplay, what was the most difficult one to envision on set?
SG: One of the ideas we had was that in the very first time that Pretorius shows up after he was in the beyond, we wanted him to be able to turn himself inside out. I had read somewhere that anything that has a hole running through it can be turned inside out. That seemed to also indicate that human beings could as well because theyve got a hole at each end. The idea was something that we really worked very hard to do with the special effects that were available 20 years ago.
DRE: Was the budget much greater than Re-Animator?
SG: It was. It was more than three times the size of Re-Animators budget. We had three effects companies working on the film, which was great because they were all trying to outdo each other. Some of the guys who were working as assistants on that film, I think they were like teenagers, were people like Bob Kurtzman and Howard Berger who started KNB Efx, Gabe Bartalos and John Vulich, all of whom started their own special effects companies later on. So we had this amazing talent pool which was pretty extraordinary.
DRE: Where did you shoot From Beyond?
SG: We shot the movie in Italy because and Charlie [Band] had bought Dino De Laurentiis studio there and it was enormous. So we made Dolls and From Beyond back to back on the same set. I actually filmed Dolls before I did From Beyond, but From Beyond was released earlier because Dolls had a lot of very extensive stop motion animation which took time.
DRE: Charles Band is someone you still work with.
SG: Well, I havent in awhile, but were friends. The thing about Charlie Band is that theres no such thing as a development deal with him. When I did Castle Freak, I was sitting in his office and there was a poster on the wall of his office that said Castle Freak and it had a picture of Quasimodo whipping a girl who was chained to the wall. I said, Whats that movie about? He said, Its about a castle and a freak. Then he said, I dont have a script on that. Its a poster.
DRE: It sounds like William Castle.
SG: It was. I said Sure. Ill do Castle Freak. He said, Okay. We start shooting in two months.
DRE: If the From Beyond airing on Monsters HD and the subsequent DVD does well, would you be interested in either writing, producing or even directing a sequel?
SG: Yeah. We always talked about a sequel to From Beyond when we were making it. It would be great to go back and do one because we have some ideas about the sequel, which I think are pretty cool.
DRE: What were some of the ideas?
SG: The only one that survives in that film is Barbara Cramptons character but shes completely out of her mind at the end of the movie. So the idea was that shes in an insane asylum and the doorway to the beyond is now through her. All the other characters are able to reappear by coming out of her.
DRE: Speaking of Barbara Crampton, it seems like shes game for anything.
SG: She is. Shes amazing and very brave. Although initially she refused to bite off the pineal gland because when we were working on it, one of the effects guys started talking about how it looked like a dogs dick. She said, I know what that is. Im not putting that in my mouth. I said, No. Think of it as a piece of asparagus.
DRE: What was it made of?
SG: It was probably latex rubber or something with a blood tube running through it. Another one of the shots that the MPAA made us cut out was the one where she bites it and blood spurts out. Now you can see everything she initially refused to do in all its glory.
DRE: In Re-Animator she had a severed head go down on her and then in From Beyond a guy with these really disgusting fingers touches her breasts. Did she ask you, why her?
SG: Its funny because I murdered my wife in all of my movies too. I think after awhile both of them realized that in a horror movie these are the great scenes. If youre going to be in a horror film, you want something horrific to be happening to you. Barbara really makes the scenes work. I always say good acting is the best special effect. She makes you believe its really happening.
DRE: How do you direct actors with all these special effects around?
SG: The thing about this movie was that the monsters were there. It wasnt like now where everythings a greenscreen and youre creating stuff in post-production. This was 20 years ago where there was no CG so the monsters were there. They were able to interact with them and play scenes with them. I think that makes a big difference.
DRE: What made you cast Ken Foree?
SG: He had such a great good-natured quality. Hes the only character in the whole movie thats a normal guy. We wanted somebody who really could project that so the audience would really relate to him. Ken is like that in real life so hes bringing himself. It didnt hurt that he was so well known from Dawn of the Dead.
DRE: You still work with a lot of the same guys that worked on From Beyond like [cinematographer] Mac [Ahlberg].
SG: I do. Mac is semi-retired now, but I would work with him again in a second. Hes fantastic. His work on From Beyond is so beautiful. Thats one of the things thats nice about seeing it in Hi-Def because it really captures the color. Visually its a very striking film which is due to a large degree to Macs work.
DRE: Are there going to be a lot of extras on the DVD?
SG: Yeah. Barbara, Jeffrey Combs, Brian Yuzna and I have all done commentary. Theres going to be interviews with the special effects guys talking about the conceptual artwork and storyboards. I think its going to be an amazing DVD.
DRE: How close are we to seeing real remakes of your films?
SG: I hope Im gone by the time those happen actually. Im not a big fan of those remakes.
DRE: I could easily see Brian [Yuzna] and Charles [Band] trying to do remakes of them.
SG: I know that Brian has been approached by several studios about doing a new version of Re-Animator. Its really his call because he has the rights to that project. But the original still works. Its one of the films that people are still screening. I just went to see a showing. They created a drive-in theater here in LA to screen it and the audience went crazy. The movie really holds up. If it aint broke, dont fix it.
DRE: Well theyre getting around to remaking 80s horror films. Theyre about to do The Hitcher, which came out around the same time as Re-Animator.
SG: Yeah, I know. Thats another great movie, which Im sure holds up as well.
DRE: When do you shoot your new episode of Masters of Horror, The Black Cat?
SG: Im shooting that at the beginning of September. Jeffrey Combs is playing Edgar Allan Poe, which is a part hes wanted to play forever. Theres been lots of movies that have been called The Black Cat, but they have very little to do with Poes story. Were sticking very closely to the original story and making it about Poe himself. Were combining his life and the story together.
DRE: Hows Stuck going?
SG: We are in the process of casting it right now. Im hoping were going to be in production soon.
DRE: Do you guys have the whole budget yet?
SG: Yeah, we do. Finances are not the problem. Its getting the right actors. Its mainly a two-character movie, so these guys have got to be fantastic actors. Were looking for names. There are some great actors that havent really been discovered yet, but I think for a movie like this where its really powered by these two characters, we really need a couple of names that the audience has heard of.
DRE: I read that House of Re-Animator is going to set in the White House.
SG: Yeah, were excited about that. Were in the process of writing it, so thats a little ways off.
DRE: Are you definitely directing it?
SG: Yes, we hope to start at the beginning of next year.
DRE: What has brought you back to Re-Animator?
SG: It was when George W. Bush became president, I want to say got elected but he really didnt. I actually believed that Donald Rumsfeld had died. I couldnt believe he was still around. Suddenly I had this idea that this was a reanimated Cabinet. I got very excited about the idea. Ive actually been pestering Brian to do this House of Re-Animator idea for awhile. It wasnt until Bush started his second term that Brian had finally said, Okay. I think we should do it. I think he was afraid of the idea originally.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 12 of 12 COMMENTS
From Beyond rules I can't wait to see that with the missing parts !