Summary
Edward Eischel, an intern at the Ulster County Asylum, has no qualms about using human subjects (dead or alive or somewhere in between) to test his wild theories about electricity and human thought, though he does chafe under the authoritarian regime of the arrogant Dr. Wardlow, the resident alienist. When Joe Slaader, an inbred from the Catskill Mountains, is admitted to the asylum after he is found in the woods cradling his sister's gore-besmirched head in his lap, Edward sees in Joe the most fascinating subject he has ever encountered. Joe sports a disturbing growth on his back, a growth that bears an uncanny resemblance to a human face and hands, a growth that Edward initially takes to be an incomplete, but brilliant, conjoined twin. The truth soon proves to be far stranger (and, in the grand Lovecraftian tradition, never entirely comprehensible.)
Events soon spiral out of control - Edward loses his job, Joe loses control of his bladder, the mad inmates and the sane doctors become virtually indistinguishable, and the corridors of the Ulster County Asylum run with electricity and blood.
Warning! Spoilers ahead!
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Barbara's Rant
I'm a sucker for a mad scientist. Always have been, always will be. No other horror villain can boast the depth of purpose of a true mad scientist. No one - good, bad, crazy, sane, human, or animal - has the passion, the commitment, the drive, the focus of a really dedicated mad scientist. What's more, mad scientists possess a tremendous relevance, probably always have and probably always will, in light of the constant struggles inherent in scientific investigation between potential immorality and potential progress, between potential benefit to the many and potential harm to an individual. Additionally, a mad scientist may be reprehensible, but at least he or she is never stagnant like Edward's self-righteous uncle. As a free thinker and an artist, as someone devoted to creative inquiry, in the context of a movie, at least, Edward's stodgy uncle is more repugnant to me than Edward himself, for all of Edward's pride and disregard for the sanctity of human life and human dignity.
So imagine my delight at this movie, which offers me not one, not two, but three deliciously diabolical mad scientists, though admittedly Dr. Fenton doesn't go mad until a good ways into the movie. Even when he does go mad, Dr. Fenton lacks the research goals of a regular mad scientist, but he's still very worthwhile to watch because there are probably few things funnier to watch than a man getting his head torn off by a woman he's trying to rape because he's too stupid to take his shoes off before he tries to remove his pants. Dr. Wardlow is also a rather non-traditional mad scientist, in that, while his is undeniably as crazy as they come, his insanity stems not from the usual mad scientist's thirst for knowledge but from an ordinary thirst for power and dominance. His goal is not to deconstruct or comprehend or control the works of God, but merely to control his fellow men, a rather less lofty, and therefore less interesting, ambition. Nonetheless, the perfect conviction of Dr. Wardlow's arrogant superiority is so compelling that he manages to make watching him feel like a privilege.
And then, of course, there's Edward, the quintessential mad scientist. Young, disrespected by his colleagues, obsessed with a theory at which his contemporaries scoff, scornful of common wisdom and common morality alike, Edward is an heir in a direct line of descent from the most illustrious names in the annals of mad science. Even the style of Beyond the Wall of Sleep celebrates this prestigious heritage, recalling the classic films of the horror genre all the way back to the silent films of the 1920's - the black and white, the chiaroscuro, the unapologetic over-acting - but updated for the 21st century with deviant sexuality and copious gore. A little too updated, for my taste, in fact. This movie's greatest flaw, in my opinion, is that it sometimes, in particular in the opening sequence, succumbs to the repellant modern fad of frenetic, seasick editing as well as, in the dramatic conclusion, the even more unfortunate modern penchant for CG monsters, which are particularly inappropriate in a movie set largely in 1908.
BARBARA JO
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